My 2 1/2 year old granddaughter loves this toy. She cannot put it together, but we never expected her to. The problem is, the toy is difficult to put together even by an adult. The pieces do not fit together as they should. But the child loves the finished product.

These pieces are difficult to fit together. The wooden pieces have holes drilled in one place, making it extraordinarily difficult to place the ones that span two levels, because the holes aren't quite in the same spots on the top and bottom levels. The plastic pieces are difficult to fit on, but they come apart very easily, leading to large parts of the track coming down often. This wouldn't be as bad if you could just slip them back into place, but as mentioned above, getting them into place is like solving one of those puzzle boxes with your eyes closed. My husband suggested a hammer and superglue might fix the problem, but did we really pay this price for one configuration ever?

Wonder world, make the prongs thinner. Things would come apart easily, but they already do that, at least this would make repairing it a two-minute task instead of a ten-minute task.

We've tried every marble track brand because my son has been preoccupied with them since he was 2 years old. He watches marble run videos on youtube and has taken to building them in his school's art workshop (he's now nearly 5 years old). We've tried HABA tracks and one of the other plastic runs and some all wooden marble tracks. Nothing is as durable, versatile and high quality as this one. My son is now 4.5 years old and we've gotten 1 - 2 sets for either Christmas and birthdays since he was 2. Granted, with his first set when he was 2, I was a bit skeptical because the bricks were a bit of a challenge to put together; plus, the configurations seemed too complex. But of course, that was because he was only 2. And I'm glad I didn't give up on these sets. We now have about 8 sets and I think we'll keep going until he has them all.

Why do we prefer these to the others? The sheer number of configurations. Once put together, they are quite sturdy - more so than the other sets we've tried, especially those without locking bricks like HABA. And we love the cleverness of some of the sets like the one with the elevator stairs or the Hammer Slammer. By the way, one caveat: the elevator stair one is our least favorite as the mechanism that carries the ball to the top as you turn the handle is hit or miss. Plus, it's a really bukly piece. That said, we've just used all the other pieces in that set. We haven't tried the Tower yet and I'm not sure how that would work with the other sets.

Anyhow, this is an amazing toy for families that have a little engineer in their home. Great for technical thinking and problem solving. My husband and son now even build little projects together where the track will begin on the dining table and end by knocking of stacked dominoes.

I knocked off 1 star because the pieces were quite challenging to put together and they don't lock firmly. It is much bigger than what it looks like in the picture. My 3yr old son loves, loves, loves this and he experimented with many different starting points to see what will happen. Will buy different sets and connect them together for more varieties

Great concept! We watched the companies videos the whole month of December. My 7 yo wanted this more than anything for Christmas.
It's just "okay". Pieces don't fit perfectly or easily. They do not reconfigure in other patterns too well, so creativity is limited. If you have a child that needs a simple first set, that remains constructed and the same.... This could be for you.
This was incredible expensive for a toy that doesn't allow any creativity to switch it around.
We also bought a additional set, hoping more tracks for help. Not so much. Well still with Marble Run, Legos and knex. More appropriate for 3-5 years old.