Transparent Marble Run 43-pc. Set

nice toy except requires adult assistance to build. once ready my daughter gets engaged for a long time.

I purchased this for my 4 year old son. He loved the idea of it, but it was much more challenging to assemble then we anticipated. Its not like you can just hook it all together and then the marble goes. You have to really plan it out and keep testing whether the marble goes the way you are intending it to go. Also, my son backed up and stepped on a piece and it broke in half, so maybe rubber, as opposed to plastic, would be more sturdy. I was also under the impression if you dropped the marbles at the top, they could find different ways down to the bottom. Not the case. They all went the same way, so much of the structure went unused... although it "looked" like it would be cool.

Marble run arrived packed only in a plastic bag with no instructions. The pieces did not seem to be the same as the product photograph. A very disappointed little boy on Christmas morning.

This is such a good toy for constructive play. It gets children thinking in three dimentions and a bit of physics (gravity) thrown in. All the children I have gotten it for will spend time trying to make the marbles go where they want. It would be nice to have larger pictures of the models shown on the box, sometimes it is hard to see which way to turn the channel pieces, but we just "try it out" and the children like that too. The holder for the wheel is fragile, we broke one the first time we were using it. It is excellent fun.

They have a few of these sets at my daughter's preschool and the kids were fighting for turns with it. It's a lot of fun to build and rebuild the marble run and then send the marbles down the shoots. I got a set for us and have also given many away as birthday gifts for boys and girls.