CONSTRUCT & CREATE Hydraulic Robot Arm DIY STEM Build Your Own Project Kit Set

I'd bought my dad a book for Christmas, and it turned out that he already had it (possibly even from me!), so I felt a bit bad about that and wanted to get him a replacement present. Stumbled across this, read some of the other reviews, and decided that it sounded sufficiently challenging - my dad's a (retired) civil engineer, and, while this is more a mechanical engineering type thing, I thought he might enjoy it.He's taken about three weeks to construct it, working in between other things, and he's had a lot of fun doing it! He said he was really impressed with the quality and precision of the parts, and even more so with the clear and comprehensive (71 pages!) of instructions. But the extra bonus is that once it was finished, he's handed it over to his grandson (my nephew) who's six - he's been round there after school on three consecutive days, and while there he's done nothing but play with this! Moving toy cars around, lifting things, propping things ... the controls are quite complex, but not so much that a six year old can't learn to do it, and my nephew has got to grips with them really well. He (nephew) is not particularly gentle with it, but it's held up well so far - it will, eventually, probably fail somewhere, the hydraulics are favourite; but it may then be possible to repair, and even if it isn't, the many hours of fun that they've both had with it will have been well worth the money! My dad says that one of the best things about it is that it's about the best visual demonstration of how hydraulics work that you could get - you can see all the parts working, and exactly what they're doing, and my nephew finds it fascinating. Maybe another engineer in the making!

I brought it for my 7 year old nephew as a surprise. He absolutely loved it. It took my brother almost 3 hours to build it up as it was a little tricky. But is worth it. Once is build very easy to use. Seems to good quality.I would say kids from 7 years old should be able to use it easily.Overall is perfect great educational tool.

Don't get me wrong, it's good and sturdy and capable if picking things up and moving within the turning circle of the arm. I bought this for my son thinking it was pre-made (I didn't read the small print). Nevertheless, 4 hours later it was ready (oiled, de-burred and hydraulics working). However, my son has taken it upon himself to use it as if it plant constructed in a factory and pushed levers to there extremes etc. It is still together and fully working but after a week or so of non use, I have found the hydraulics are a tad 'sticky' and need a gentle manual persuasion to remember to move when levers are pushed. It's a very good toy and good use of time for a child but there was lots of potential areas where a child could get the construction incorrect. The hydraulics sticking maybe my own fault during construction maybe but still cast a doubt (for me). I would still buy another if asked.

This is an excellent kit. The pieces are all nicely engineered and go together perfectly, though some of the screws are particularly tight going in and they're just a little too small-headed for a screwdriver with decent torque. There is general advice to remove the plastic burrs from the injection moulded plastic once popped out, but perfection in this is not usually essential, and there are more specific warnings on one or two more critical stages particularly involving gears.It does take some humanpower to build though! Although the packaging says 10+ it provided a fair challenge to an 11 year old and both parents with engineering backgrounds. Amazon's guidance of 18 months to 8 years should be ignored, unless that's how long they think a solo 10 year old will take to make it! Apart from those rather tight screws, nothing required brute force, but a number of the (many) steps were pretty fiddly and an impatient child without good fine motor skills will struggle.Once made, which took our team of three (as above) about 5 hours total, well .... it works, and works well. None of the pipes have popped off yet, and no water has leaked. I'm sure this will not remain the case forever, whereupon we will find out how easy it is to do whatever partial dismantling is required to remedy. The gripper mode is particularly good and the most visually appealing. The suction mode is OK and does work, but doesn't have much strength and requires the cup to be dampened in order to do very much.I don't know what the lasting appeal of the completed kit will be, but it's proving more than a five minute wonder, and was undeniably a lot of challenging fun for us to build as a family.

I learnt allot about hydrolics. The toy has allot of sprues of parts, so took me a few hours to build, but is very rewarding and a great learning experience about general ideas behind a peice of technology that's used in industry