A mom tackles Lego Roborider - Frost
Written: Jun 15 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Inexpensive, holds child's attention, nice storage jar
Cons: Instructions contain no words, only illustrations
The Bottom Line: A great kit to play with, but the instructions weren't always clear.
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| iowamommy's Full Review: LEGO - Frost |
Lego Technic Roboriders were included among the Christmas loot in our house this year. Between Christmas and my son having a January birthday, we managed to get the whole collection.
What is a Roborider?
If you haven't played with Legos lately, you are in for a surprise. These Legos look nothing like the set I had as a child. I had mostly rectangular and square pieces with an occasional window or door piece mixed in. Everything I built looked about the same. Today's Legos are all sort of shapes and special pieces. The Technic line makes some pretty advanced pieces.
A Roborider is a vehicle that is built from a kit. There are six in the collection, including Frost (which this review is about), Swamp, Lava, Dust, Power and Onyx. Frost is a two-wheeled vehicle.
What is Frost like?
Frost comes in a white plastic jar. This is so much nicer than most Lego sets that come in boxes, since the boxes end up getting torn or smashed and the Legos end up in one big pile mixed in with other sets or scattered all over the child's bedroom (tell me my kids aren't the only ones with bedrooms like this).
I believe you can get these sets for around $5.00 at discount stores. They are made for ages 7 and up, and the Frost set includes 43 pieces. The Frost vehicle is predominantly white, as the name implies, with some gray, black and blue touches.
Assembly
I decided to tackle assembling Frost myself today. My boys have played with Legos for so many years (they are 8 and 10) that it is almost second nature to snap these things together quickly. I wanted to give it a shot myself and not rely on their opinions.
From start to finish, I assembled this in about 25 minutes. This included a few starts and stops for ringing phones, fighting children and one episode where the pieces got wiped off the desk and had to be retrieved. Whew!
With my 8 year old by my side offering guidance, I found out I was making a few errors. I messed up on the very first piece, putting it backwards. You see, there are no written instructions in the booklet. Everything is by sight. (Not my favorite!) I'd put a few pieces in wrong before my son pointed out my error. When it showed black rod pieces, I had a choice of lengths and was stumped. I noticed each page with a rod to install shows a chart with the actual size of the black piece, so you can grab the right one. The chart is helpful, but took me awhile to even notice it was there!
A few illustrations along the way were confusing, since the angle it shows it from makes it appear that the rods are going through a different place than they actually were. (My son didn't understand why I was having trouble -- I might have been trying too hard!) The mistakes are discovered as you get further on, and something doesn't fit into place.
The directions aren't the easiest, I found out! It was complete in 25 different steps.
What can I do with it now?
Once I had Frost assembled, I looked further in the booklet. There is an illustration of the "wheel flip trick" where you can fling the front wheel off by pulling back on a certain piece of the Roborider. It shows a person shooting the wheel into the jar. Well, mine fizzled and didn't even clear the baby gate I was sitting next to. In attempting to do this trick, I pulled the entire front end off of Frost by sliding it out too far. This feature was a little shaky and awkward.
You can push Frost around like a motorcycle on its two wheels. (It looks like a cross between a motorcycle and a fighter vehicle.) There is a feature where you twist a knob on the top, and this connects to a spiral piece like a corkscrew that changes the tilt of the toy. If it hadn't been for my son pointing this out, I would not have known it. When I asked him how he knew that, he pointed out the illustration in the directions. There was just an illustration of the toy, with a red "twist" mark hovering above the knob, but no words telling me that I should twist it. I didn't even notice this. Better labeling would be great!
Up for a challenge?
At this point, you can take your Roborider apart and create a more involved "combo-rider" to play with. In the last half of the booklet, it shows that Frost can be combined with Dust to make a bigger vehicle. It is the same type of illustrations, with no words. My son has tackled this once, and then changed back to the plain old Frost. You can also combine kits and use the lids from the jars as wheels in some combinations.
Bonus fun feature!
One thing sure to please your child is the "secret code" on the jar. You put the jar in the freezer for at least 10 minutes, at which time a secret code will show up on the jar. The child then logs on to the Lego website and is able to input the code number and play a special game (according to what he tells me). I never know when I will open up my freezer and have a Lego jar fall out on me! Even though they know the code, it is still fun to try this out.
My recommendation
The toy is a hit at our house. I have to mark this down to 4 stars for the poor directions. Kids might not have trouble, but I could see it being frustrating. Once they catch on and have it assembled, though, it is a fun thing to have around. Here is what my son said about it.
"Fun! Good for pretending you are in a battle with the other Roboriders. They stay together good, and are easy to put together."
The Roboriders are one of his favorite toys. He even used one for his videotaped presentation of show and tell at school, since he is so pumped up about them.
At a cheap price like this, it is worth giving them a try. They would make a good birthday present for a child about 7-12 or so, in my opinion.
My favorite part about this toy is that there aren't a ton of pieces, like many of our sets. It is a quick project to work on, and can be shoved back in the jar for storage without taking it all apart.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 5.00
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iowamommy
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Location: Iowa
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Mother of four product testers!
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