Thames & Kosmos Geckobot Wall Climbing Robot

Great quality and my 7 year old loves it. Great for homeschool science learning. Some of the pieces are VERY difficult to put together and take apart even for an adult. I have to use pliers to take some of the pieces apart.

This is a truly ingenious kit and my nephew and I had a great time assembling it together on his 7th birthday. What I particularly liked about this project was that it was well-suited for a parent-child (or uncle-child, in this case) team to work on together. Much of the Geckobot project requires two duplicate assemblies of each part - body, legs, etc. This was great because I could build one, while my nephew built the other and then he could look at mine for help, as needed. That fact aside, the quality of the parts far exceeded expectations for a kit at this price. I didn't have time to build any of the other projects with him, but clearly there is a tremendous amount of value in the box.To address the concerns of others who gave this kit less than a 5-star review - there's no denying that this is a sophisticated kit that likely requires some adult intervention. But therein lies the fun and the challenge. There are some sophisticated, but clear, concepts and diagrams in the manual that explain how the cams have to be positioned in order for the bot to work correctly. What's so ingenious about the product is the choreography that the gears and cams create to move the legs while simultaneously releasing the suction feet at just the right moments. It's complex but if you can understand what's going on (and demonstrate it to your child), it's really rewarding to observe!There is a short inset that describes how suction cups work and there is also a short description of how the bot mechanism is working, but the latter is mostly text. A suggestion for a future revision of the manual might be to include some more detail and diagrams which describe this more fully. Nonetheless, there is a tremendous amount of STEM learning going on here - gear trains, cams, principals of suction not to mention basic construction concepts such as assemblies and sub-assemblies.This is a super-cool kit. If you (or your son/daughter/niece/nephew) is not afraid to be a little challenged, you will be delighted with what this project has to offer!

I got this for my 10year old daughter. She had a blast putting it together. It took her a while, it isnt as simple as. LEGO kit. But she did manage it. However, it required Dad’s help to actually,climb walls. Its a complex design with many moving parts and it did need some adjustment. At first, it would get stuck. We tried the corrections suggested by the manual, and we eventually got it to walk up a mirror. The instructions are pretty good, but lack the clarity / simpleness geared towards pre-teens in a few places. So depending on your child’s age/mechanical aptitude, it may require adult help. However, it does work as advertised and I think for the price makes a wonderful present.

The media could not be loaded. We got this based on our experience with the advanced Technic sets of Legos, since they looked similar. They ARE in fact similar in concept, but the Geckobot pieces tackle the same types of connections in entirely different ways, so even if you or your kids are familiar with Technics, you'll soon learn another way to do the same type of joint, etc., which is REALLY cool. The other big thing the Geckobot adds is suction, which I personally haven't seen in the Lego world. This is the biggest "feature" of this set--you get a sense of real hydraulics and have to understand how the movement is created for walking up the wall.Here's some advice: don't start with the gecko. Do some of the simpler ones first, then move to the main guy, which is by far the most complex. Also, 8+ is more accurate than 8. I have a 6-year-old that is GREAT at Legos and this one was well beyond him. My 11-year-old was able to do it just fine, with the exception of the tubes; though he is very athletic, he wasn't strong enough to push the ends of the tubes all the way. Some sort of lubricant (petroleum jelly? whatever won't harm or dissolve the tubes--be cautious0) might be needed. Also, you have to cut the tubes the first time you build any of the projects, so that gets tiresome, having to measure in centimeters every few steps. Measuring flexible objects is hard anyway, so that might be a deal-breaker for some otherwise capable students. Finally, make SURE your AAA batteries are fully charged. This thing takes a lot of juice to apply the suction, so you need ones that read at the full 1.5 volts. I doubt NiMH 1.2-V cells would work for this. Also, we goofed up and made the geckobot so that he walked backward initially, but that was easily solved by swapping the tail and the head! I felt truly clever when I figured that out, so hopefully this little spirit of elation didn't color my judgment too much, haha. If you liked this review, please check out the other ones at my site, Learn Richly. Thanks! --Steve