Thames & Kosmos Ultra Bionic Blaster

My 8-year-old daughter picked this out as a gift for her dad, so they could assemble it together. He was really excited about opening the present and knowing that she picked it out for them to do together. They put most of it together in one afternoon and had a lot of fun. Lots of small pieces, but not too complicated.

The toy sadly never worked. We did all the troubleshooting as well but no luck. Disappointed.

Not recommended. Made of flimsy ill-fitting plastic and extremely difficult to build unless maybe you hold an MSc in Mechanical Engineering. My 8 year old grad son and I have given up trying.

Item comes packed nicely with original box. no damage to the box. Did not open and check as it's an early purchase gift for Christmas .

I've built several Thames and Kosmos kits with my kids - including the really complicated hydraulic hand. The other kits were great, so I bought this one cause it looks really fun.... But, it's horrible.First, you need a very small screwdriver and a pair of wire cutters that are not included. No big deal there.The problem is the build is EXTREMELY frustrating and it's VERY FLIMSY. The whole top part of this that hold the bullets doesn't secure on in any meaningful way and it comes off easily. The little sights fall off easily. The spring that is supposed to help raise and lower the launcher part is not only difficult to put on, it unhooks constantly.I took this thing apart and reassembled it several times. I must have spent a minimum of 3 hours just trying to "fix" this.I'm the end, I can't get it to work as intended. The handle jams up and won't compress, gets stuck in place, or does not generate enough force to compress the springs in the back because the gears get caught up. One half of the handle slides up more than the other and then it gets stuck. I poured oil I had on this over liberally over every single gear, contact surface, and spring trying to get this to function.It'll launch a bullet if I manually pull the air generator apparatus back, which is tricky to do, but I know that part works.It's the handle and gears of this thing... Which is also really annoying because the handles have multiple tiny screws in them add its a total pain to have to deconstruct them again and again.I did not enjoy this. The fragile construction and unfuncrional results are disappointing and just frustrating. Frustrating.... And I feel Iike I should type that about 5 more times.