STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) play is hot right now, and looking ahead it’s a category that will only continue to grow. For some toys placed in that category of hands-on learning, not all are necessarily “new,” but sometimes new spins on some old classics. Marble play is pretty timeless, and I even had a Marbleworks set some 30-40 years ago, one that I believe my mom might still have. Likewise, my wife and I have played with some similar things with our own kids, and one recent offering is the Techno Gears Marble Mania Catapult set, sent to us for review by The Learning Journey, along with their new Techno Gears Bionic Bug.
With the Catapult set, there’s a lot of hands-on action that needs to take place, with kids (or kids and parents) tasked with building the 100+ piece set which consists of interlocking pieces that are pretty unique in the construction space. What I do need to note (and many of you know that I’m pretty particular on plastics) is that the Marble Mania pieces are made of that thin, very rigid plastic that feels sorta low end. While we didn’t run into problems, this is the type of plastic that’s most likely to snap or break, so that is something to keep in mind here. Also, the spring-loaded mechanism that launches the marble is pretty hard to push – even for a grownup.
The toy took around an hour to build and it’s pretty fun – launching (or catapulting) a marble roughly 18″ to the top, where gravity takes over. While the build is fun, I don’t see a ton of replay value in this particular set as there’s not a lot of customization/rebuild options available unless you purchase other Marble Mania sets. See it in-action below.
The Techno Gears Bionic Bug is the winner of the two toys sent to us in this batch – tapping into the current robotics craze with a simple, gear-driven set that puts crazy motion in the body of a silly bug. This one requires a few AA batteries, so make sure to have those on-hand.
Kids can snap the pieces together to see a range of motions all driven by the single gear on the electric motor. Of note here is that the pieces do need to be fit together perfectly to work (ours required a little post-build grownup tweaking), but it works great as long as everything is nice and tight.
The best part is that this set is only $20, so it’s fun at a reasonable price.
These sets and many more are available direct from The Learning Journey, or from associates like Amazon.
