Skyrail Suspension

If you want the ultimate marble track toy, this one is it. It took me about 4 hours to assemble. The key to this toy is the cables. They make for the long runs and the graceful track. I would suggest this for ages 14 and above for people who are good at assembling stuff. Its comparable in difficulty to assembling flat-pack furnature. Its almost like assembling a piece of modern italian art, the curves echo those of the Dulles Airport terminal.There are some errors in the instructions, particularly on pages 9, 10, and 12. The diagram on page 13 is the most accurate. The upper left back loop has 3 straight sections not 4. The upper left loop goes down about 4" on the front and the rest of the way on the back. The two lower loops have 2 straight tracks on each side with 1 cable for each straight track. The upper loop has 3 straight tracks on each side with a cable for each straight track. Assembled correctly there are 28 total cables, each lower loop has 8 (4 each side), and the upper loop has 12 (6 each side). Plan to spend some time adjusting the lengths of the cables, this is part of the "fun" if you like a challenging project.

My 13 year old son was unable to construct this. We spent a few hours on it together but did not complete it. This is only appropriate for someone who really likes building extremely intricate models for many hours.

Made this with my kids years ago and wanted to buy for a friend but apparently they don't manufacture it anymore. It was difficult to tweak in order to keep the marble from flying off but that's what made it fun.

I bought this for my 8 and 10 year old daughters so we could assemble it together. They have had other, much smaller marble runs and like them a lot. Assembly took about an hour and took a little patience, but was a blast. The instructions had a major mistake on the first page, but were otherwise OK. The biggest flaw in the design, and it is huge in relative terms, is in the tackle used to secure the cables to the track. There are these little plastic step shaped tension adjusters that form one end of each cable. Almost all of ours were defective and would not close. After assembly, they snap open, releasing the lines. I tried tape and glue and replacing them with double half-hitch knots, but nothing really worked well. Considering there are up to 24 lines holding up the rails, this is a major problem. In spite of this flaw, my kids have spent about 4 hours playing with the thing and making small adjustments with almost every marble run. Lots of fun. The different types of marbles provided allow kids to see the effects of weight and momentum as some will complete a run, some will not and some fly off the rails. We will probably buy another set to build something really massive. One last note. The photographs on some of the boxes misleading. The assembled unit is about 40 inches tall and 7 feet long. Not as big as pictured, but plenty big.

We bought the 365 piece kit for our 11 year old son. He loves it! It took him about three hours to build the first coaster (all by himself). His second ceation made with assistance from his 8 yr old brother went together in about 30 min. It definately is a learning toy. They would build one section test it and then make necessary changes before moving to the next section. We highly recomend this toy.

While the toy looks intimidating, it is not: it is great fun. There is some setup time right at the beginning, particularly building the core tower. The instructions have some mistakes, but another review got us straight on that. And, at the end, it doesn't matter. Any reasonable tower will be fine. Spend some time putting together the lines attaching the two types of ends to the string. Then you are free to put together a long, looping track in practically any way you like (the one in the instructions/diagram is a good place to start). The first time through, marbles will fall off the track, probably at the very first curve. But you use the very clever attachments to the string to change the shape of the track, creating a hill to slow the marble down, or a dip to increase speed. It was great the first time the marble made it to the bottom safely! This comes with three types of marbles, and creating a track for which all three marbles works is a challenge.I bought it for myself (I'm 40-something), but my four year old loves it! While it would be hopeless for him to put this together, he spends hours sending marbles down, and then adjusting the track (the adjustments are that easy), normally making things worse.This would be just the sort of thing for an early/mid teenager to spark an interest in engineering. Once you see and play with this, suddenly bridge design makes a lot more sense.

Simple to construct like leggos....only tedious task is to construct the strings that make this a skyrail. Little plastic parts make up the string slings that make this so much fun. Once these are all constructed (and carefully not tangled) the installation of slings is simple too. Then the fun begins. The goal is to keep the ball on the track, but make it go fast downhill and rise to just slowly walk the corner thus saving the maximun energy for the next downhill leg of the run. Suggest adult supervision on the initial construction and certainly the assembly of the string slings. Once installation is complete, all get the idea for variations and adjustments that are quickly and simply made. Hours of tweaking and experimenting can be had with one track construction. Creativity can come from the young and old. Its a blast!!!