Customer Reviews

Ravensburger The Earth - 540 Piece puzzleball

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm not a big fan of jigsaw puzzles (sure, they are fun, but I can think of more fun things to do with my time), but when I saw this thing in its assembled form at barnes and noble, something about it made me do a double take. It just looked so cool and unusual -- a professional-looking globe made out of jigsaw pieces with no internal support! How can it be so smooth? How can it stay solid? I hadn't even noticed that it wasn't a solid globe at first, when casually catching it out of the corner of my eye a few times as I was browsing the book stalls. It seemed like a lot of fun to make something like this, as was the prospect of testing my geography. My wife didn't see it as all *that* cool, but we still had a blast assembling this thing, though she only did the US, canada, and antarctica and only had patience for 30-60 minutes at a time. Trying to figure out which part of the world a given piece belonged to based only on parts of city names was a lot of fun. Watching it grow was great. Highly addictive, causes sleep loss. Took 3 days, maybe 4 hours a day. I would say the difficulty level is appropriate for adults and kids over ~12, or under 12 if accompanied by adults (unless it's assembled in cheat-mode where you look at the numbers on the backs of pieces). The pieces are hard and plastic, and interlock pretty tightly. It holds together pretty well during assembly, and is sturdy when fully assembled -- you can roll it around like a soccer ball (just don't kick it) and it can spin in the base very fast without breaking. It didn't seem quite as smooth as in the store -- some pieces jotted out by a fraction of a mm, but it does look perfectly smooth from a distance. My only qualm is that the printing on some adjacent pieces was slightly misaligned (< 1mm) and that some ocean pieces are completely identical, so that the only way to distinguish them is by the numbers in the back. But it's actually perfectly useable as a regular, fairly detailed globe and especially as a cool decoration! I'll probably eventually get some of their other ones, such as the globe of the night sky.

My 9-year old daughter and I have had a wonderful experience with this puzzle. She started out using the numbers on the back of the pieces, but I convinced her to use her regular puzzle skills to assemble the globe. We've both learned a thing or two about geography! I chose the Ravensburger brand because of its quality and durability; I wasn't disappointed. I definitely recommend this product to others.

I have purchased two sets of this puzzle globe. I consider myself to have above average skills in modeling and crafts, and I've been assembling puzzles and models for over 40 years. I found it impossible to assemble this puzzle neatly, without flaws. I realized, soon after inspecting the first set I bought, that it would never assemble properly without glue. In certain areas of the puzzle the pieces simply don't fit together properly, without creating distorting stresses in the ball. Some pieces require forcing or trimming to go together at all.
I was not satisfied with the first resulting globe so I decided to get another one and try again. It hasn't gone much better. I assembled the puzzle to the midpoint, the equator, and began to have serious difficulties.
The photo of the completed puzzle on the box can't be an actual, assembled Earth globe puzzle, not one of the mass produced ones, anyway. It is quite deceptive.
If you want a jigsaw puzzle, I recommend one that's made of two dimensional panels, or a smaller size spherical puzzle. This one was quite frustrating.

We love maps and globes. Our family room is full of them. This is just the latest addition to the decor. It was fun to put together. I'm not sure how kid friendly it is but it is really old guy friendly.

This was an extremely fun puzzle. I stayed up late at night working on it. If you don't "cheat" by using the numbers on the backs of the pieces, it is an excellent way to learn and review geography. The pieces have a great, smooth feel to them. They feel solid and seem to be waterproof (plastic or plastic-coated). My wife and I had a great deal of fun with the puzzle and would recommend it for most ages down to about age 8, depending on a child's interest in learning and an adult's ability to teach and to interest children in learning. It might be a bit tedious for kids too young or too impatient.

The puzzle is fairly solid and rigid when completed (thanks, probably, to my use of tape on the inside). It spins well in the metal stand. I disagree with the reviewers who faulted the stand--it was easy to use and did not require distorting the puzzle. I also disagree with those who wrote that it cannot be constructed in sections. That's exactly how I did it.

I gave this item 5 stars in the provided categories and would have given it 5 stars overall if not for these flaws:

1. The numbering on the back is great for the ocean areas that have virtually no distinctive features, but can ruin the experience and the learning for the land areas and the oceanic areas that have features. The numbers should only be provided for the featureless oceanic areas.

2. The box and on-line advertisements very clearly state that the puzzle requires no gluing. This is simply false. Many, if not most, connections are not solid enough to stay together well enough to support the weight of other connecting pieces. Some simply fall apart when lightly touched. There is no way this puzzle can be constructed without adhesive. Once I accepted that, and started using tape, I really enjoyed putting it together.

3. The instructions are pretty good, but do not give the full story. They indicate that the puzzle must be constructed in a certain way (South Pole to North Pole), but this does not lend itself to constructing sections, such as continents, and then assembling them, and it is also not the best way to finish the puzzle. Finishing the puzzle effectively took some creative engineering (which was fun for me, but not intended per the instructions).

4. Many, if not most, pieces have discontinuities across their connections--i.e., the words and features printed on the outside do not line up perfectly. It's not terrible, but it doesn't look like a normal puzzle.

5. The picture on the box of the completed puzzle is deceptive. It shows no discontinuities and a perfectly smooth surface. (It's probably a prototype.) Even with creative engineering, very meticulous construction, and liberal use of tape on the inside, my completed puzzle has many connections that are not perfectly smooth. It also has many discontinuities.

6. Many pieces are almost identical in shape and connection points. In other words, it's possible to fit many pieces together that are not supposed to be together. I had a few oceanic sections fitted (and taped) together, only to discover later that they were not in the correct place (by looking at the numbers and after connecting additional sections). A "real" puzzle, even one with significantly more pieces, has very few or zero connections that are identical. You should always be able to tell with 100% certainly whether a connection is correct--even in a featureless area.

In spite of these objections, I recommend this toy, but hope that the manufacturers would improve their products in the future.

We saw this at a friend's and were so intrigued that we had to get one to "play with".

It is surely a conversation piece and at 9" in dia.it can be put almost any place.

The things which were most impressive were:

1. Very well packaged.
2. Clear directions and assembly guides.
3. Sturdy semi-curved thick plastic pieces.
4. Inspected thoroughly, no missing parts.
5. Numbered pieces.
6. Great stand and assembly "platform.
7. Good fit, although the "plastic flash" on
a couple of pieces needed to be smoothed out
but not a big deal.
8. Ordered on Friday and received on Tuesday.
9. And...it's fun.

It's a lot of fun to put together and definitely teaches geography. It's challenging too, especially in expanses of open ocean but fortunately all the pieces are numbered. It's only drawback is that it's not really a "group" puzzle. Because of it's design you basically start in Antarctica and work your way to the North Pole, pretty much holding it in your hand as you go. Because of the curve of the pieces it's difficult to put together large "sub-assemblies" of areas like you might with a traditional flat puzzle. Nor could one person (or group) start with the South Pole and the other person start with the North Pole, meeting at the Equator. It's also a little fragile. It won't fall apart in normal use but will not stand up to impact or rough handling.

All in all it's a challenging puzzle, looks great completed, and I would highly recommend it! Suitable for kids 7 and up with adult supervision and kids 10 and up alone.

I was thinking about getting a globe as a gift for school age children and came across this puzzle globe. It is a current, working globe with the added bonus of being able to visualize each country as it is put together. The puzzle format is easy to use (the pieces are numbered on the back), but still a little challenging. It is also hard and durable, and can withstand pressure and falling (not a hard fall, I don't think). It would be nice to have some sort of back lighting for night use, but craft aficionados will find a way to remedy that. After I gave one away as a gift, I recommended it to a friend of mine as a gift for an 8 year old puzzle lover. It was his favorite gift ever and he finished it before the night was over!

We bought this for our family as a gift and assembled it together so it does make for a fun group activity. It is also educational - we learned quite a bit of geography putting the globe together.

There are some weak points worth noting about this product though. Many times the pieces were a bit loose (didn't fit together very tightly) whereas sometimes you really had to jam the pieces together to make them fit. You can check to make sure you are putting the right pieces together (the back of the peices are numbered - very helpful for the water) so it's not like we were trying to fit pieces together that just didn't fit.

Another problem we had is that the text (eg. names of bodies of water, cities etc.) doesn't always line up. I expected all the pieces to come from one globe but this doesn't seem to be the case. This would probably also explain why some pieces didn't fit together well.

My final problem with this product is the insert that comes with the globe to show you what the globe should look like. The "map" they provide is incredibly small and hard to read. I find it hard to believe that they couldn't make it a little bigger.

Overall though, putting the puzzle together was quite fun. The stand that comes with the globe looks nice and allows the globe to rotate freely when in place. Once assembled the puzzle does look pretty cool. Had it not been for the misaligned text, I think I probably would have given the puzzle 5 stars rather than 4 overall.

I got this for my 8 year old who loves puzzles and wanted a globe. I never intended for her to put it together by herself. It was meant to be a "father/daughter" project and its a good thing-definitely not made for a smaller child. Although it has numbers on back for those who need the extra help (or just want to cheat) it required three of us to get the puzzle into the ball formation. Once its together, its together-very sturdy and secure but getting it there requires a bit of patience. I would suggest an age range of atleast 10 and up. It is not a quick project either and we found it entertaining to do it after dinner each night or on a Sunday afternoon. As for the father/daughter time-it was priceless!