Discovery Kids Construction Fort, 77pc Build & Play

I purchased two of these sets for my 11 year old son a few months ago. He's on the spectrum and one of his quirks is that he loves to be enclosed in small spaces. After reading some of the reviews on here, I was a little nervous that the quality would be poor. That was NOT the case. It's perfect. The poles are pretty sturdy and hold into the connectors nicely. Being that my child is older, he is able to connect them well but I imagine a younger child will need the help of an adult. It takes a little bit of strength to push them in. The structure doesn't last forever with him crawling in and out all the time but he loves rebuilding and coming up with new fort designs. Be sure to use sheets to drape over the fort. We tried using heavier blankets at first but it weighed it down quite a bit and the structure didn't last as long as it did with the thin sheets.

As others have mentioned the holes are drilled inconsistently. Some of the rods are cracked at the ends after only 2 days of inconsistent play (mostly because they want to play but give up because my 4 and 7 year old boys find it difficult to get the rods in the holes securely). I assembled a fort for them but it was far too flimsy to support the weight of a bed sheet. A very cool concept, like large tinker toys, but in reality so very frustrating.

Love this set. I had a set and ordered a second one so my kids can build larger forts. My son is 6 and daughter 9 years old and both love playing with it. It is tricky putting the sticks into the connector balls but after a few tries the kids got the hang of it. well worth the money.

I purchased the Discovery Kids Construction Fort because my boys kept rearranging my furniture to build forts and I thought this would be a better fit. My mom had purchased one from a retail store and my kids love to play with it. I was slightly disappointed in the quality of the one that I received. The packaging and box are the exact same as the one my mom has, however I feel that the one I received isn't as sturdy and is more difficult to put together. The sticks don't fit into all the holes in the connectors. You have to really jam the sticks in the holes of the connectors in order to get them to stay together. The descriptions says it is sturdy but it is not sturdy at all. One little bump and poles easily come out of the connectors. I have two dogs and if a tail bumps the fort, it falls apart. Overall, the concept is great but I wish the product was sturdier and easier to put together. The forts are fun, but they don't last long as the pieces come apart easily.

This product has a few faults but if you understand and plan for them they are not critical. 1) This absolutely positively needs adult help. It takes significant strength to fully connect the rods into the balls. Also an adult mind will be able to better keep the balls in the correct orientation. This is a learning project to work on together with your kid/s. 2) If you do not plan on supplementing with chairs and other typical "blanket fort" building objects you will likely not be satisfied with a single set as you will quickly run out of rods. 3) You have an excess of balls, this is to make up for the fact that many of them do not have the hole drilled out cleanly. If you run across a ball that has too many plugged or poorly drilled holes just chuck that one in the trash unless you want to bore it out with a drill bit as another user recommended. 4) The balls are soft and their compression fit to the rods will eventually sag if you do not have 3 point support. What that means is that you want to build in 3 dimensions so that your balls have 3 rods connecting instead of two. Triangles and cubes will give you strong building structures but that burns through your supply of rods VERY fast, hence why you will likely want two or three kits right away. 5) The rods often have plastic burrs on the ends, use your fingernail or whatever and snap them off or they will not fit into the holes very well at all. Now, with all the effort it takes to put these together, I can easily justify giving these a 2 or 3 star rating. However, because of what you can do for your kids with a few of these sets and how much our 2 and 4 year old love them, that pushes it to a 4. Your two year old wants a canopy over their bed? No problem. Your four year old wants a "tent" over their sleeping bag? Coming right up! Having said that, if spatial relationships and strong hands/arms are not in your bag of tricks, you are best off passing on this as it may end up being more frustrations than it is worth.

My children make forts EVERY DAY! When I saw these, I knew it would be a huge hit with my kids. Our children are 7, 6, and 3 and they love building forts with this play set. The set is well made and has so far held up to our busy 3 year old! I like the fact that there are so many different options in how to put it together-- they can really be creative in putting it together. I see another set in our future!

These are absolutely terrible, dangerous and a complete waste of time and money. First off you'll need to take a razor or knife to most balls and clean out plugged holes that the manufacturer didn't seem to get. Then you'll need pretty strong force to put most together and they'll fall apart most easily, leaving you frustrated that it took that much effort to put together just to fall apart from sitting there. Then you have these death spikes sitting there waiting for a child to fall onto. I took some time putting an igloo together which was pretty neat, but it did take lots of time to put them together, moving on and redoing​ what falls apart as you as you go. Then satisfied with it a kid walks in and five minutes later it's completely destroyed. I even tried super going them together in an effort to make something last and it didn't even last one use. The ends of the rods are kind of sharp too.