We've got Gears Gears Gears coming out our ears, ears, ears!
Written: Jul 03 '01 (Updated Jul 03 '01)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Durability: |
 |
|
|
Pros: Great creative play, endless options, easy to store, age-adaptable
Cons: Pricier than Legos, hurt when you walk on them!
The Bottom Line: Creative play toy with endless possibilities, a big-kids version of 3D Legos, GEARS will not disappoint! Buy storage containers to keep the pieces together, the whole family will enjoy these!
|
|
|
| WorkingMomof2's Full Review: Gears Gears Gears Construction |
Watch out Legos, there's a new toy in town...Learning Resource's Gears! Gears! Gears!
Toy Overview
Winner of the Oppenheim Best Toy Award, Dr. Toy's Best Children's Products for 1998, National Parenting Honor Award and the Family Fun Toy of the Year Award, Learning Resources' Gears! Gears! Gears! is an innovative 3D product that takes construction play to a whole new level.
Each of these brightly colored pieces is a construction shape, either a gear (a round piece with 8 spokes on the side), a connector or handle/arm piece. The pieces interlock like Legos, but instead of being one direction only, you can turn the pieces at angles. There are also motorized pieces, whirling pieces, and even moving parts. Once you build your 3D masterpiece, you turn a crank and watch your pieces move with the gear teeth turning the other pieces.
It's simple enough for young kids to use, like Legos, but allows for older children to build larger and/or more complicated designs as well. The sets come with construction ideas, but the real fun begins when your children start creating their own moving masterpieces.
The basic set comes in a box, with 95 pieces. There are several different options, including the Super Set in a tub with 150 pieces (about $40). In addition there are accessory sets like the whirligig set (with windmill like pieces that turn with the motion, about $15) and the motorized set (that lets you plug in your set, so you don't have to hand crank it, about $15). There is also a Sonic Robot set (which we have, and is a lot of fun, about $45) that lets you build a motorized Gears robot, with clear Gears so you can see the inside and you can reconfigure him in any of hundreds of ways!
We also invested in the $60 Gears! Gears! Gears! workstation, a handy bookshelf like set with nine colored tubs underneath to store tubs in and a Gears platform on the top (with little raised square bumps that the Gears hook onto).
My six-year-old son loves his Gears, and will play with it for at least an hour at a time. It is fun to watch the many creations he comes up with. Like Legos, half of the fun is building something different either time. He likes to build designs that he sees in the play guide, but also creates new and totally unique designs. It's especially fun when he builds creative robots that move around!
We've had older kids - teenagers and above - come over and become fascinated with the Gears! Gears! Gears! set. It's addictive, and entertaining. My three-year-old daughter likes it too but the skill required and pre-planning to foresee the impact of your gear placement is a little too advanced for her. She also is not quite ready for the small motor skills needed to clamp the gears together tightly so they will spin correctly, while my son has no problem with that. We just bring out the Gearations toy, though, and she's happy as a clam playing with that while her big brother builds his 3-D masterpieces.
Overall Recommendations
This is a difficult toy to accurately describe, and I hope that I have conveyed it well. Please use the link to the side to go look at the parts, and it may make more sense. I can highly recommend this toy for your little one from 4 to 10. It will give them hours of enjoyment in creative and constructive play. I would recommend either getting the tub or the workstation, though, as those little gears hurt like a son-of-a-gun when you step on them!
---------------------------------------------------------
If you're interested in a Gear-type toy for a younger child, please see my review on Gearations one-dimensional Gear toy:
http://research.epinions.com/kifm-review-2D95-BB0DE73-38E685EF-prod2
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 19.95
Type of Toy: Model Kits
Age Range of Child: 6 to 8 Years
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
WorkingMomof2
|
 - Top 200 |
|
Member: Amy
Location: Southern California
Reviews written: 313
Trusted by: 540 members
About Me:
Every time I close the door on reality it comes in through the windows.
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.