Customer Reviews

Learning Resources Gears! Gears! Gears! Wacky Wigglers

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

...even more so than his first two-wheel bike.

Here it is January 25th, and the "Robot" (Wacky Wigglers) is still getting pulled out almost every day. Both my 3 year ols and my 1 year old love it, and the older boy is single-handedly building some pretty impressive contraptions. My only potential complaint will be the cost of replacing all of the button-batteries in the various flashing elements once they start going dead. They make the whirling, chomping rolling (and flashing) contraptions that much more impressive, but for some reason, need to be turned off by an adult (funny, since they need no such grown-up help to turn on).

I'd recommend this as a toy for 4-8 years with two big thumbs-up. It's sort of like an erector set without the need for nuts, bolts, screws or tools. Everything just snaps together. Add eyes, floppy ears and alien hands and it all adds up to a wonderful outlet for young imaginations, and a great training tool for physical principles.

(I'm actually here on Amazon sourcing an expension set now.)

My children recieved this toy for Christmas. We have had fun putting it together and it is hours of entertainment. This toy is great for kids 5 and older. That is because the pieces have a tendency to come apart easily. The motor allows you to move the parts forward and backward. I also liked that the book came with different designs to build.

We bought this toy for our 4 year old son for his birthday. He wanted a "robot" -- so we thought this might fit the bill. He struggles with putting it together with all the pieces that are included, but is quite capable at building a basic structure. We've found that the more elaborate structures doesn't always work as designed, and invaribly it falls apart quite easily. BUT, I foresee our son growing with this toy-- learning how to use more and more pieces, and creating more complicated designs. Overall, it's pretty neat and fun to play with.

the wacky wiggler was a christmas gift for our bright 5 year old son. this was the first thing that he wanted to put together. this has also been the first thing he has stopped playing with. we followed the directions perfectly and if the mouth isn't falling off jamming the gears, something else jams the gears and it gets stuck. it seems to work slightly better on the kitchen floor, but not entirely. i am pretty mechanically inclined and cannot seem to understand why this isn't working the way it should. it would also be great if the control for this would have been remote instead of corded. this really limits you somewhat. our son already had the concept of down of how gears worked together. we thought that this would be a little more interesting for him.

This toy is great in concept, but the actual toy needs some definate readjusting. It is somewhat difficult to get the pieces pushed on all the way, but even if you do get it all put together it still may not move. We still have not adjusted the gears correctly so that ours will actually move; perhaps, it doesn't. The other BIG problem is that if you do get it together, it is not easy to get apart again. Therefore, I do not see a child wanting to take it apart much and create many creations (The whole point and learning value behind it).
My child has completely tossed it aside, even though he was thrilled in the beginning to receive it. He loves to build, but this toy is too difficult and frustrating - even for me. I started to pull it apart and after getting several pieces off my fingers were sore. I too put it away. Oh well, I will chalk this one up as me getting so excited about a concept that I didn't listen to reviews.

My son got this at age 7. LOTS of fun! My 22yr old had a blast with it too. Smaller kids will need help building the different figures, but it's a great shared experience. Comes with instructions to make a few, but make up your own also. This set comes with some glow in the dark and light up pieces, which adds more fun when the lights go out.

This was the first gears set we purchased, and now we have added four more. They are so much fun. We purchased this set for my son when he was five, and he's a pretty experienced builder (lots of Legos), and he loved it! He opened it for Christmas last year, and MY parents loved it, too. It's very unique in that it has glow in the dark pieces, slinky pieces, rotating gears, etc. He's been playing with it for over a year now, and it's still one he goes to frequently. My three-year old is really getting into them now, as well.
Also, to the reviewer who got the motor that didn't work, I hope you contacted Learning Resources. They're very good about replacing parts.
All in all, a fun, educational toy that's very versatile - not one of those toys that's limited to a few play-sessions, and the child is bored. All the gears sets are compatible, too!

I worked w/my 6 yr. old grandson. He was very enthusiastic. The battery pack didn't hold the batteries firmly causing problems that he couldn't solve, and the cord was problematic often getting tied up in the gears. The tightness of the connections was a problem both in construction and disassembly. Spring parts weak. Uniqueness and wackyness pluses.

This toy stole the show at Christmas. Our son, who will be 6 in two months, played with it non-stop. We helped build the model pictured, but after that he understood how the gears worked and built anything and everything he could think of! We did initially have some problems with the gears sticking and being loose especially on building the model pictured, but our son worked out the kinks! We highly recommend this toy to the child who likes to build and create.

This is a great toy. My 6 year old son loves it! He can do it by himself with a little help every once in a while to take apart pieces. I had to return the first set I got because one of the wheels kept falling off, and even though we could push the toy and the gears would move, the motorized remote couldn't move any of the completed wigglers. We figured out that the white prong on one of the axel gears was too short and caused the wheel to fall off, and also caused any gear on that side of the wigglers not to move.

We requested a replacement set, which Amazon sent incredibly fast. Once we received the replacement set, everything worked great and we could move all the completed wigglers. The only other thing that caused the wigglers not to move with the motorized romote was that my son accidentally used one of the dark blue gears with a round attachment hole instead of the square one that is supposed to go on the motorized remote prong, but now we know to avoid that problem. Overall a great product, however, it is a pain to have to re-pack and return the defective first set.