Customer Reviews

Lego Mars Exploration Rover (7471)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I just finished building the Rover with my 11 year old son over the last three evenings. For us, Lego's with lots of gears and manipulating parts are the best, and this model is great. Although hard to tell from the pictures and descriptions, it has a knob to steer the 4 corner tires in a coordinated fashion, a button that deploys and unfolds the 'solar panels', a knob that releases the 'camera boom' and then rotates it when upright, another knob to rotate the 'antenna', and lastly a knob to extend and move the 'drilling probe' and retract it again.
As usual, the pictorial instructions are very clear if you can keep your eleven year old from jumping ahead to build the cool parts. A small complaint is that the model contains white, light grey, dark grey and black parts of the same shape, and it's not always clear from the pictures if light or dark grey are to be used. The only consequence of picking the wrong color early is that you'll have to use the opposite color later in the construction.
My son and I have found a good way to share the building of Legos'. For each page, we take turns being "parts man" and "assembler". And then keep each other focused by doing Quality Control (playful ragging) on each others work. So find a kid (or the kid in you) and build it.

Brought the toy to Mexico (where we live) and on a Friday night I presented my 10 year old son with this gift. By Saturday night he had finished it and enjoyed himself very much. This is one of the best Lego's he has put together and is already looking forward to the next. It was very entertaining and challenging. We are continually looking for harder Lego's to assemble.

The product is informative in the basic requirements of a mars exploration rover. But it lacks the more important aspect of the true versions design, such as all terrain traction and shock absorbers. It is also lacking self propulsion. But this is, of course, only a toy.

I bought this model when I realized that Lego was no longer producing it and not many sets were left. This model is becoming a collectible so the prices can be quite high although it is still possible to fin sets that are affordable. The idea was to offer this model to our son when he will be 10 but I could not resist putting the thing together, pretending I needed to have an idea of the difficulty, but truly for the sheer fun of it :) And fun it was ! But I also did realize that the minimum recommanded age (10) is likely too young for most kids. There are 70 assembly steps and many of those steps require sub-assembly themselves (up to 20 steps), and some of the assembly require both a good deal of precision and strength. I'd think 12 to be the actual minimum age. In any case, after several evenings of work, the final result is gorgeous, with several subtly articulated elements. Now I just have to find the courage to dismantle it and store it for when my son will be ready for it :)