Gears! Gears! Gears! Gizmos

I bought this as an expansion to the Learning Resources Gears! Gears! Gears! Super Set (150 Pieces) <link below> for my 4 year old son. He was 3 years old when I bought the Super Set.http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00000JGWY/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s02?ie=UTF8&psc=1I highly recommend both products. The parts are very well built and durable.The Super Set (link above) was perfect for a three year old. It gave him a lot of gears and was easy for him to learn how to use / build new set-ups. In the Super Set all of the gears are a single standard size. Therefore, it is very easy for a 3 year old to figure out and build things that will interact by default. I would recommend starting with the Super Set if it is your child’s first set. I would also consider buying the Super Set in combination with Gizmos and Gears so you have a lot of pieces to build things with.Now that my son is a year older and has experience with the base set (he has played with it a lot off-and-on over the past year), we decided to expand it with the Gizmos and Gears set.The Gizmos and Gears introduces two new sizes of gears (medium and large) and three new sizes of base plates. It also introduces several new “gizmo” pieces. For example, it comes with two connection springs which allows you to connect the center of two different gears on different planes or different orientations (e.g. orthogonal to eachother). As the driving gear turns, it builds up torque in the spring, and the second spring turns with a slight delay. Other gizmos include a propeller and several new creative structural pieces as well.The Gizmos and Gears set provides kids with good hands-on experience with machines. They will develop a natural intuition on the impact of Gear Ratios (small gear driving a large gear, or visa versa), begin understanding the concept of Gear Backlash (how much you can turn the driving gear before the tolerance stack-up results in movement / force throughout the gear chain), learn how to be creative and invent their own “machines”, etc.. all while having fun.It is fun to watch my son focus while he is building and experimenting with the various gears. With the different sized gears in the set he has to figure out which structural pieces he needs to use to ensure the teeth will adequately interact. When he wants to add a new gear, sometimes he has to remove existing ones so he can physically fit the new one in. Then he has to put the originals back in place. These are great experiences that will help him figure out how things work and build / repair things in the future. Nothing beats hands on learning. There are things you learn playing with physical objects that you will never learn on a tablet or smart phone app. This is also a great opportunity for parents to play with their kids. My son often wants us to play with him and help him build new “machines”, or to proudly show us his new machine and ask us to operate it.In summary, I highly recommend the Gizmos and Gears set, especially if it is an expansion to the Super Set I mentioned earlier in the review. The Gizmo’s and Gears set is also good as a standalone set. The first night my son used it was stand alone and not yet combined with his other gears. The number of parts in the set is a little limited, so if your child does enjoy playing with them, you may look to expand the set with a second Gizmo’s and Gears, the Super Set, or one of the other expansion sets you can find on Amazon. I can see this set being fun for kids of multiple ages. My son is 4, but I can see him playing with these , much like legos, for years to come.

This set of gears is very sturdy, and the pieces fit together as they should. They do not lock in place, but, for the most part, the gears stay put as they turn. They occasionally come loose at times when it's not part of the plan, but a locking feature would create its own issues, so I'm okay with the design.The gears can be arranged in many configurations, and extra "gizmos" are included to expand the possibilities. I had a smaller set from this same brand, so when I wanted to expand it, I looked for these again. Happy with my purchase!

Our 3yo asks to play with this set every day. Even though he can't build the complicated structure pictured on the box, he can build his own less-complicated structures. When Daddy plays with him and puts the entire set together, they have a lot of fun watching the monkeys swing around. Our 2yo grandson was equally enthralled, even though he couldn't put any of the pieces together yet. He still liked the brightly colored pieces and carried them around the house. I love that there are several sets that can be used together. This is an engaging toy that can be put together many ways and since we gave it to him 2 months ago, this has been our son's favorite playset.

Got this for my 7 year old niece for her birthday after I noticed how much she enjoyed playing with the magnetic gears set my kids have attached to the front of my refrigerator. She really likes it, as do her younger brother and both of my girls all between the ages of 5-7. We all played with it building different designs for over an hour, and my sister in law tells me she is still playing with it a month later, so that's good news.Pros:- Educational (helps develop engineering and design skills, cause and effect, etc)- Bright, attractive colors- Lots of cute little accessories (butterflies, lady bugs, interchangeable flower centers)- the plastic is thick and seems to be durable- there are a good amount of pieces - you don't feel like you have to get another set to have fun with itCons:- difficult to figure out how to use some of the more complex pieces (instructions are not very user friendly)- difficult to snap some of the pieces together and apart (especially the specialized pieces that snap into the centers of the flowers)- hard to use the hand crank, especially when you have a lot of gears in place, and especially for kids who have weaker hands- wish it came with some sort of storage box or bag, but no biggie- wish they had a motorized accessory to turn the gears, rather than just the hand-crank as this really ads an awe-factor that I have noticed is missing between this toy and the motorized magnetic fridge gears my kids have (though I did not knock off score for this, just a thought I'd mention it in case Learning Resources reads these reviews)

I love this toy! That being said, it is a bit complicated to put together if you want to follow the directions. The directions, by the way, are a bit difficult to see at times (colors are a little hard to distinguish). In addition, there were some discrepancies I had to address at the end right before completing the design. I have a five-year-old girl, and I had to set most of it up myself. She will play with parts, but the overall large design was way beyond her. She doesn't care, though, and she has fun with it whether it's in the full form or not.As for me, a former teacher, I am thrilled with the potential educational lessons that this toy could teach. It's good for colors with young children, for one thing. And then, with direction, a child could really practice the basics of physics, as it shows them the whole concept of a gear, not to mention movement caused when they function together. I don't think, however, this is educational without adult direction of some kind. That is not to say that it can't be fun, as my daughter likes it just for the monkeys alone!