K'NEX Education - Intro to Simple Machines: Gears Set – 198 Pieces – Grades 3-5 – Engineering Education Toy

K'Nex has done an amazing job with their educational sets, and we have been using them as a supplement to our family homeschool program. The K'NEX Education - Intro to Structures: Bridges set is an excellent way to teach how different types of bridges are built. As we take family car trips, my kids always notice the bridges we cross over. We have some really neat ones in Maryland, like the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, the Bay-Bridge Tunnel, and various smaller bridges all around the area. This set helped my kids learn how all of them work. First, the set comes in a nice red plastic tray with a tight fitting lid, so all of the parts stay together. It stacks easily with other K'Nex education sets in the series. There are 7 types of bridges, with a few variants, for a total of 14 structures you can build. Each of the 7 types has an explanatory paragraph to describe the technology. The first bridge is a simple beam bridge. There is a second variant, a long-span beam bridge, useful so you can observe how it flexes under a load. The beam bridge is then improve as a truss, with examples of a Warren Truss, Howe Truss, Baltimore Truss, and K-Truss. The neat thing is that the trust could be attached at the end, so the children could see the weakness of the bridge before the truss and the strength once attached. The kit also covers the cantilevel bridge (a special type of truss) and the bascule bridge (movable bridge). The arch bridge was particularly fun, with three variants, the arch under, arch over, and arch through. Finally, the kit ends with three modern bridges, a suspension bridge, a single-tower cable-stayed, and a double-tower cable stayed. My only negative on the kit is that the instructions are not like lego instructions with many steps. Many instructions are nothing but a single picture, and it can be hard to see how all of the pieces fit. I built the bridges with an 8 year old, 6 year old, and 5 year old. Only the 8 year old fully understood the instructions without help, but my 5 year old could do it with a little assistance. For instance, bridges are symmetrical, so I would build the left while my 5 year old copied me and built the right. A few pieces required a bit more finger strength than the 5 year old could must, but the 6 and 8 year olds were fine. Once built, my kids had fun experimenting with different toy cars (not included of course) to see how the bridge could hold them. These are functional bridges that really demonstrate the concepts well. There is also a teacher's guide on CD with additional information and activities. This set is quite a good buy for the money - lots of education and fun all in one box. Plus most of the parts are made in the USA, something that can't be said for a lot of toys today. A recommended buy!

I bought this for my granddaughter who will be 7 next month. I was not home when she opened it but my wife said she worked with it for an hour without stopping. She was not able to complete the first project she tried, but came close. With a little help she finished the project and was happy. The instructions are good. She was just old enough to connect the pieces together although she had to strain. The use of gears in the design was interesting to her and to me. I believe that the set is worth the money I spent and I expect that it will last a long time. one month update: My granddaughter and I have made three of the machines: a fan, a car window, and a staionary bike. In each case she worked alone and in each case she made a small mistake that kept the project from working. It was not so easy to find the proper solution, but working together we did. I think this is a great set, but it will be a challenge for the younger ages. It is now eight months since I wrote this review and we have completed the seven projects. My seven year old grand daughter needed help on some but not all of them. You might need to explain what a phonograph is!! We have now bought the levers and pulleys set and look forward to doing those projects.

I bought this for my 4 year old and I wasn't sure if he would be able to use it, but he surprised us by making a bridge on his own during quiet time after we built the first one together. The first time we used the set he had a hard time clicking the pieces together and asked for help a lot. I'm not sure if he just got better at it or if the pieces got a little less stiff with use, but he managed to click them all together. He loves bridges (and since getting this set now knows what type they are when we see them in the wild) and has been having a great time with this toy. He also loves the long flexible green pieces, he likes to use the pieces from the set to make them into clover leaf shapes and pretend they are ramps on and off of the highway. Overall I am impressed with this toy, it's educational and the pieces can be used for much more than just building bridges. We can't wait to complete all of the designs!

K'Nex is a very good educational product set. My kids are 9 and 6 years old and they both liked playing with this. There is some educational value in the toy as well as it does teach kids about simle matchinges and structure building techniques. Only reason I am giving this product 4 stars instead of 5 is because linking the pieces together is a little bit tough for smaller kids and requires a level of strength that some smaller kids might not have.

I got this set for my homeschooled 10 year old daughter who was learning physics this year for science. The designs included were very relevant to her lessons and are regular objects which made it more interesting for her. At first she had some issues with getting the pieces to fit together, but once she figured it out there were no issues. Each design took about 30-45 minutes to put together and directions were easy to follow. She got a kick out of the fact all the cranks really work. This turned out to be much better than I anticipated which makes me very happy. It's a product that can last since she'll happily rebuild the 7 suggested designs and she's working on coming up with some of her own. I'm happy the quality if good and the case it comes in will help keep all the pieces together so my younger daughter can use them when she's ready.

Grate, nice lot of bits and pieces just the job for a very engineering interested boy, or girl.

Wer Spaß hat am bauen, für den ist das echt gut

Es exactamente lo que ordene y me llego antes de tiempo.

Quando si pensa ai giochi educativi si pensa a cose noiose, questo non avviene quando il giocattolo è pensato per far divertire e incuriosire cosa che questo set è riuscito ad ottenere. Ho apprezzato il montaggio solido, i pezzi con coloritura differenti in base al tipo di pezzo e le istruzioni semplici ma non passo passo che hanno stimolato mio figlio a osservare e cercare di comprendere. Di tutti i montaggi il preferito resta il mulino dove grazie alla possibilità di variare gli ingranaggi abbiamo imparato praticamente come funzionano i rapporti della bicicletta.

Great.