The Learning JourneySearch Sidewinder

I had purchased techno gears in the past. This particular set was junk! Poor quality, gears slip, has a cheap hand crank. I would not of expected this from a techno gears set. If you have purchased techno gears in the past and are expecting the quality of previous sets. You might want to stay away from this set. I will not buy another techno gears set.

This is not a toy that you can play with and enjoy it. My daughter is great at building things but she struggled and we both got frustrated when the pieces were extremely hard to pull apart. The instructions were adequate. Once we were able to get it built nothing worked like it was intended. Flimsy, not sturdy at all. Constantly having to make adjustments makes this toy no fun! The marbles jam up a lot going up the tube because the two piece screw comes apart after two or three passes. marbles will not flow into the tube properly. The lower crank is useless because it will not stay on. We had to remove it to get anything to work. Having to move the gears by hand make it worthless. The gears do not mesh properly causing you to try to adjust something that just will not work.The pivoting shovel sticks because the the clearance is too tight causing it to bind. If I only Knew!!! I do not recommend unless improvements are made. This could be a good toy if sent back to the drawing board.But right now If I know of these flaws I would not have purchased.

Poorly made piece of junk. Complete disappointment to my son on Christmas morning!

My 6-year-old son loves Legos and is pretty good at building with them. I had to help him with this because it's fairly difficult to put together. He seems to be enjoying it plenty, but it doesn't seem as "open-ended" as Legos (not sure how easy it'll be to rearrange into different shapes, etc.), but we've only had it for a week or so, so I'm not sure yet (he hasn't tried taking it apart and doing anything else with it so far).

My son likes to be busy and this is a good project and even after assembled he wants to build and transition the structure. Great activity for a boy ages 5-8.