Thames & Kosmos Gumball Machine Maker Lab - Build Machines with Physics & Engineering Lessons | 12 Experiments | Make Your Own Gumball Machines | Includes Gumballs | Award Winner

Purchased for a 5 year old friend for a gift. Hudson requested it and loved it. Wonderful gift idea.

My granddaughter loves this gumball machine

My son loves marble runs and looking at gumball machines when we pass by it at a local restaurant. Since he was two, he loved his marble runs, and weirdly called his marble runs a gumball machine (not sure why). So when I saw this, I thought it was perfect!Unfortunately, it didn't work out as well. The actual pieces are hard to configure. You're pulling or pushing the plastic pieces onto pegs while wondering if it's going to break. I studied the instructional pamphlet and kept wondering what I was doing wrong.There was a question on whether it can be used with marbles. Technically, it can and does, but some of the tricks don't work as well. That can also be a part of the lesson - using different types of "gumballs" to see what works. The marbles are too heavy for some of the tricks (or maybe we just put it together wrong).One issue we had with the domino slide - the tiny pieces just wouldn't stay on. I noticed that they were different shapes, so we played with the order of the pins but it didn't seem to help. Pinball launcher broke after the third set up. That became another lesson, looking at the pieces, figuring out where it broke and how to fix it. (We glued it back together and it works again).We use it with our marble runs now. We have it sitting on a shelf and build the marble run below it. My son loves turning the gumball machine crank, go through a few of its tricks, and have the marble drop into the marble run.At the time that we bought this, I tried to view it on youtube but kept seeing the same promotional video over and over again - so that didn't help. I do see new video uploads by Thomas Wetzel added here, which is absolutely helpful! Watch that while starting and it will help. Unfortunately, my son and I had to learn the hard way.Overall, even though it wasn't easy to put together - some plastic pieces broke and some tricks didn't work, my son loved it and we used it as a learning exercise. Why didn't some tricks work, would it work better this or that way? If we attached this here, what would happen?

I think this is a great gift for kids. Especially good for kids interested in STEM and have the patience to build. Id recommend 7 and older.Downside is that it's hard to no lose pieces over time. Plus like anything else, kids get bored of it.

Do not buy this gum ball machine. My 7 year old was so excited about this. It’s horrible. It’s hard to assemble, the opening in the top is not covered so the gum balls are always exposed, and the WORST part is if you accidentally grab it by the top to move it the top comes completely off and gum balls so everywhere. I cannot even tell you how many times I’ve picked up spilled gum balls. The worst money I’ve spent. It will be going in the trash and was hardly even used.

THIS WAS A BIRTHDAY GIFT FOR MY 12 YEAR OLD GRAND. SHE REALLY LIKED IT AND ENJOYED PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER. HER BIRTHDAY WAS IN DECEMBER, AND SAID THAT SHE ENJOYED BUILDING IT.

I gave this gift to my niece’s daughter, and it was a hit! Not only is it something that the recipient can use for quite a while, but there was a sense of accomplishment of putting this together herself. It appears to be very durable and a great value for the money. I love to give a gift that stimulates the kids which this does.

The track is hard to assemble and falls apart easily. It is rickety and some pieces that require balance fall over at the touch of a feather. The gumballs rarely stay on the track for the full trick, even if you follow the instructions or the online tutorials. The gumball dispensing machinery gets stuck easily and requires significant force to dispense a gumball, which sometimes causes the entire setup to fall to bits.