ROKRMarble Run Wooden Model Kits for Adults Kids Hand Cranked Mechanical Gear 3D Wooden Puzzle Construction kits with 10 Steel Balls, Marble Night City

The media could not be loaded. I had a lot of fun building this. I probably spent about 10 hours in total to intricately piece this together and keep going back to crank the handle and watch the marbles roll around the route.Overall the quality seemed very good. I was very careful when building as I had read several reviews about pieces breaking. Despite my care, I also managed to break two pieces. Thankfully one of them wasn't vital and it still works, the other had a spare part.I have now ordered the other set with the connector pack.

I had looked at this before and thought "aint got time for this", but I eventually purchased it anyway, and what can I say? Firstly spend at least an hour looking at all the parts and instructions in the well presented box thinking where to start. Once you do eventually start make sure to sand all the little bits off the edges as you pop them out as the end result does look so much neater. The parts do come apart easily if you think you have made a mistake but they do break easily too, but no worries as there is spare ones provided but not many. A couple of points to note. On the 3rd picture is the rear of the model this section in the booklet is quite vague and says to use 4 plastic bushes, this is too many so use 3 and fit like I've done here. You may find this makes more sense when building it. Also photo 2 is the most complicated bit on this model and as you can see it snapped as I put the leg bits in the wrong way, but a decent wood glue sorts this out, looks nasty but works, I might paint this bit black with a permanent marker pen. Also the little label with the brass screws I would advise putting this bit on before anything else as it's quite a challenge once it's complete and add the legs too as when your building it gets on your nerves not staying put, should be noted this does exert a little extra pressure to the board so go easy. Overall its a lovely little pass time, I would say its taken a little over 7 hrs to build and about an extra hour fine tuning, just to prevent the balls getting stuck on certain bits where the track hasn't been connected correctly. I love this product and will certainly be buying more. Now to see if I can hook up a small motor to turn that big wheel.

I have made several of these laser cut wooden kits with varying degrees of success and they all share the same problems - they are much more complicated to assemble than the marketing leads you to believe and I find it hard to imagine being able to complete any one of them in less than several times more than the number of hours which the manufacturers suggest. Also, it is extremely likely that you will experience one or more breakages (I use a PVA glue pen for repairs because it allows great precision and a useful readjustment time). The instructions are always difficult to follow and a degree of imagination is always required - I guess that's why they are also marketed as 'puzzles'!The completed ROKR marble city is a joy to behold but, if you are new to the world of laser cut wooden kits, start with something much much simpler.

I'm in my late seventies and a keen modelmaker.I have constructed a few of these 'puzzles' now and find them very therapeutic to build. The designers of these kits are very clever, and a bit sadistic as these are a challenge at times. This 'puzzle', I don't know why they refer to them as this and not just construction kits, took me three full days to construct and it was worth it. The instructions are mainly pictorial with some text for guidance and I recommend going over them very methodically as it's very easy to miss something out, just don't rush things.Overall I can recommend these 'puzzles' but if it's your first time I suggest starting off with one of the smaller one's, unless of course you're already a modeller in which case you'll be ok.

Fantastic

Brilliant. Bought it for my friend who has two or three of these, he agreed

There are 2 marble runs that you can join together with a linking kit. I was given the other kit for Christmas, I took my time and it was a pleasure to build. So, I decided to get this kit; what a difference! When you start on this kit you must take great care because the laser cutting is not as precise especially where notches have been formed for you to bring the parts together because they're too small. You will need to open up the slots so that they will fit, if you don't, they will break. It's still great fun to construct but take care and don't force parts together.

This is a complicated build which took my 14 year old a while to complete. He enjoyed the build and it looks super impressive.There is no room for error though. Some pieces are fragile and can break very easily when pushing together. The plastic bushes are extremely difficult to press onto the metal shafts/axles.Of course the thing doesn’t work properly when it’s finished, so overall it’s rather unsatisfying.