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From: Rebecca McClure <ackirebecci@...>
I was wondering if anyone had ever bought a Lego Educator set. I was looking at the Simple and Motorized Mechanism Set.<
Yes, we have a few of them kicking around. And we have Mindstorms, too. Mindstorms is a sizable step up as it does require some object-oriented programming to get the robots to do what they are supposed to do, which your kids may or may not enjoy at this stage of their Lego-ing.
If your kids like motorized things and you think that they would enjoy something open-ended to expand their Lego adventures, then one of the motorized educational sets (like the one you are suggesting) might be a great fit.
I am surprised to hear they are open ended. I thought they came with some guidance and instruction. That was really what we were looking for. We own tons of legos and I thought this would introduce new elements and help them figure out what to do with them. They hate the pictures of cool ideas without instructions. They like either a pile of legos with no goal, or detailed instructions.
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The Klutz kit that Sandra mentioned isn't motorized but it has lots of gears and the activities are great, if your kids like following the instructions. And if you add on the Power Functions kit, they can likely figure out some interesting ways to put the two together!
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I saw that in my searching. I was going to save it for a trip. I thought it would be perfect for someplace we needed a compact project.
My son (9 years) also really enjoys the motorized pre-fab projects. He has learned so much about Lego construction principles from doing sets like this, it's amazing! I used to be a bit of a snob about this stuff, thinking that "open-ended" was best, but I've changed my mind based on watching my son apply what he's learned via the project-based sets to his own projects.
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This is exactly what my boys do. They build with the instructions the first time and then the pieces get added to our collection. They take ideas from things they have seen or made and incorporate them into their own creations. I would be interested in buying a ready made set, but at the moment I don't think Lego is selling any that include Power Functions, or even help on how you could include them. I might check e-bay to see what I can find used. I also can't find a set that uses gears in the way Eli wants. For example, using one gear to transfer power to another gear.
Good luck with your decision. I suspect it's very hard to ever go wrong with Lego.
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Lego are everyone's favorite toy at our house!
Thanks for all your information Rebecca!
Amanda
Eli 8, Samuel 7
