Robotics Vroom! Stem V8 Model Combustion Engine, DIY Educational STEM Birthday Kits Ages 12 and Up

My son liked building this kit a lot. The engine noises were a nice addition.

Fun, teaching leadership and lessons

This is so awesome! I do recommend this!

My nephew is interested in becoming a mechanic and had asked me how an engine works since I have rebuilt engines and have a couple cars I am restoring. I got this for him thinking it would be a great way to see the internal workings. We spent an evening putting it together and he learned a lot. I wasn't expecting it to have everything on an engine detailed but I would expect the timing to actually be accurate since that would be the whole reason to want a clear engine where you can see the pistons and valves moving. We got the the point where we were putting the timing belt on and lined it up how the pictures showed and when we went to turn it over by hand to test it before moving on to the next step we saw the valves and pistons connect and that the timing was wrong. We kept trying to adjust it and never got it right. We even took it apart to check that all the cams were correct to what the picture showed and they were. We got it back together and as close as we could but the valves would always strike. It took me way too long to realize that with the pulley on the crankshaft and the camshaft pulleys being the same it would never actually be able to time properly and would always strike. Even though this kit is a failure at doing what it's supposed to do, my nephew was able to understand what I had told him about interference engines and timing issues because of it and he did learn along the way. On the plus side there is enough slop in this kit that it is able to force it's way through the piston/valve strikes and keep spinning out of time and look nice, if you don't know what you are looking at, whereas a real engine would destroy itself.

This was given to my son as a gift. It is made from incredibly cheap plastic and soft screws which need to be self-tapped into hard cheap plastic. If your supplied screwdriver (more on that later) skips even once in the philips head screw, that screw is ruined. If that happens there is no point in continuing until you carefully remove the damaged screw and discard it. (Assuming it's not too damaged to remove.)The supplied screwdriver had a handle that is too small to get a good purchase on to properly tighten the screw. You will have a sore hand in short order. I used a quality professional "precision screwdriver" of the proper size. This made things far easier.Now to the really disappointing part. The timing belt and fan belt in my kit are made of really cheap plastic. They are not supple enough to rotate with their respective fan/timing gears. So much so, the timing belt broke. As this was a gift, we have no receipt so when can not use the included warranty parts order form. It appears it would cost a minimum of $13 for a replacement timing belt (probably a 20 cent piece of plastic). I would probably like to order two belts incase once broke again. In that case the cost would be $20, and that doesn't include tax.My son is very disappointed. Not sure what to do at this point.

Received as a gift. Had distorted part that was replaced very quickly. Only comment is that warranty registration must be done by snail mail.

This was supposed to teach my son how an internal combustion engine works. Many of the elements were there, but many were not. For instance, there is no system for delivering fuel to the pistons. No fuel injectors, and no carburator. There was also no system for removing the exhaust! What looked like it might be the exhaust manifold in the picture actually contained the spark plug wires (one would never put sparkplug wires inside a hot exaust manifold). The model left many questioned unanswered, and therefore did a poor job as a model! In addition, there were no roller bearings, no head-gaskets, and the distributor was not visible for inspection. My son and I enjoyed putting it together, but I would not recommend this model engine for educational purposes. This should NOT be called a STEM project!

This has so much potential to be a great learning tool. But once it's time to set the timing (crank to camshafts) you find you're on an impossible mission. I spent about an hour trying to get it right, but valves kept hitting the pistons. I took it back apart, triple verified we assembled the cam profiles correctly and positioned them in the heads correctly, and we had. Long story short, it's impossible to set correctly due to the poor design. If you set the timing and rotate the crank 2 times, the timing is off, never to be "right" again, which was never right in the first place. No big deal, I suppose, if you're 10 years old and don't know better. But I'm a mechanic putting this together with my 6 year old son. It's frustrating, I tell ya. Because you CAN'T fix it! But, all together it runs, and the little electric motor has enough torque to force past the piston/valve contact. Bummer