The LEGO Power Functions Idea Book, Volume 2: Cars and Contraptions

Excellent book for the younger (and older) Lego Technic fans who are looking to start building their own non-Lego builds. The use of motors really helps as it is a large part of why my seven year old son finds this book interesting. Minimal to no words, but the pictures are detailed enough to build it (much like a Lego instruction book). The pictures are in color and it's clear that the author chose Lego pieces in contrasting colors when there might be difficulties understanding the pictures. My one criticism of this book and all the others by this author relating to Lego Technic is that it is next to impossible to obtain a "kit" with all the Lego pieces necessary to build ALL the models illustrated in the set. Even a Rebrickable.com listing would be a happy substitute if one was willing to pick up all the parts in your own, but that doesn't exist either (and I know the author uses rebrickable.com because he has a custom model on the site). So knowing that there is no companion "set" that is prepackaged or easily obtained, I would say that despite my high recommendation of this book, it is only for the kid, family or AFOL who already has a good collection of LARGE (1,000+ pieces) models. I'm an AFOL (adult fan of Lego) and have 23 sets so far... but ALL of the small to medium sets you can buy do NOT have Lego PF pieces (motors specifically) or don't provide enough gears and other pieces to provide a good inventory. The larger sets DO. So five stars for quality and usefulness BUT only if you have some large sets already in your inventory (and are willing to take them apart).Last note that is somewhat of a saving grace to the enterprising parent/AFOL. The book DOES list the parts needed in detail for both Lego PF Ideas Books, but you'all have to go thru a third party site (rebrickable.com) and create your own list which isn't fun and is time consuming BUT do-able.

I think this book is better than his Simple Machines and Power Functions (Vol 1) books. Gets into some reasonably interesting (but still reasonably "simple") designs. As with Vol 1, you have to be rather visually/spatially oriented to reproduce his designs, since he just gives a few views of the designs--no stepwise building instructions. Second favorite of my 6 Lego-style books. Favorite is "The Unofficial Lego Technic Builder's Guide," which is essentially a detailed textbook on Lego Technic construction concepts.

I used this book with kids in our co-op to build some remote control cars. It gave some great examples of how to use a servo motor for steering (including rack and pinion steering) and how to use differential gears for the driven wheels. It also showed other methods for driving and steering (e.g., using two drive motors, caster wheels, 4 wheel drive). The builds require many specialized pieces, but we were able to use many of the ideas in the book using the pieces from the LEGO Education Machines and Mechanism set, however, I would highly recommend also purchasing an IR remote control and IR receiver if you don't already have one so you can operate the motors remotely.

Great book with plenty of clever ideas. I love the simplicity of the designs - they're truly Japanese inspired. Although all of the models work, some of them only slightly work, or don't work very well.

Fantastic book for nine year old venturing into learning how to get the most from Technics. Lots of examples and explanations but not step by step, so it requires a little higher level thinking. Not so hard that it frustrates my 6-9 year old grandchildren.

My engineering grandson (5 years) loved this.

Perfect book for 9 yr old lego crazy kid. Does not have step by step directions, but various images that help with construction of different vehicles.

For your young lego lover this book is full of great ideas to inspire hours of building.

We were looking to get a big lego set for our 4.5 year old, who is a huge Lego fan. We wanted something that would have a lot of replay-ability and would extend his skills. We narrowed down our choice to the Lego Boost Robot set, the Lego Technic Mobile Crane 42108, or this book with some motors. We felt the Boost Robot was too dependent on tablets and screen time, and the mobile crane wouldn't have much replayability. As you can guess, we went for this book, and I am really pleased with our choice....as is our 4 year old!The book has over 130 ideas for Lego technic builds; there is a lot of variety and the builds are really fun. There are very few words; each idea has a visual parts list, and then a set of pictures from different angles. It is easier to get it right if you assemble the pieces before you begin.There is an excellent parts list available (you can get it from the publisher's website, 'No Starch'), and we used this to order about £20 of extra technics pieces which cropped up frequently. We also bought two motors, a battery box and a remote.This is my son's first experience of Lego motors, and he absolutely loves it. The things he has made are amazing - I attach a short video of an Inchworm. Today he made a gear transmission model, which can vary between two different speeds. The fun thing about these projects is that you immediately want to find a way to incorporate them into something bigger...a car or a robot or something. It really does extend your Lego skillset.As a guide, my son has been doing Lego Technic for about a year, and can do an age 9+ set independently with no problems. If your child hasn't used technic before, I would recommend starting with something simpler like the Klutz Gadgets and Contraptions sets, and seeing how they get on. I think this book would also be suitable for a much older child or teenager - the models are cool and not cutesy, and they could easily be incorporated into something much bigger.We also have one of Isogawa's 'Technic Ideas' books, and I much prefer this one. The Technic Ideas book mostly comprises lots of basic building blocks in Lego construction. It's useful....but this one is useful and REALLY FUN!!!As an aside, I cannot understand why Lego aren't producing this sort of thing themselves. As far as I can tell, their education range is obscenely overpriced, and frankly dull. I get that they make a lot of money from selling specific sets, but I do think there is a huge gap in their offering in terms of sets that develop technical skills, rather than spoon feeding, but that do it in a fun way.

My son loves it. Colourfull book with great ideas for power function creations. Excellent quality with many pages. Every day he creates something different and sometimes he combined 2 or 3 creations to build something bigger and more complicated. After bought that book my son stopped watching TV or playing with i-pad.

Fantastic book! The build ideas are very clearly presented and easy to follow for anyone. You will find that some use more than just what comes in a single "Power Functions" set, but still interesting to create should you instead want to employ a manual approach. The book itself is of excellent quality. Pretty heavy, about 1kg (confirmed by author), but given the fantastic quality of paper and print, that's more than expected. I bough volume 1 as well (alongside a Power Function set), but that's just because I love Yoshihito's Lego books, and felt it's better to have them both, not because you'd need to.

This looked like a fantastic book to take my son's lego skills to the next level to create his own, but there are no instructions with each design - just about 3 images from beginning to end. If a new version is produced, please include instructions!

This authors books are brilliant full of colour plates for ease to follow, thats easy enough for my very young grandson to follow. This is a 5 out of 5 from us and I thoroughly recomend all his books.