VEX Robotics Hook Shot Ball Machine by HEXBUG

This was a Xmas present to our grandson who is 7. He completed it before the break was over and took it to school for 2nd grade show and tell. He loved it!

The recommended ages on this is 8 and up I believe. There was no way am right year old could put this together themselves. Once together it is a great toy!

It’s amazing!

I assembled it per the instructions, happily discovering a feature that actually had the ability to shoot a ball high into the air. The problem is that once the ball goes up and through the loop, it most likely will end up anywhere in the room except where it's supposed to.

Grandson loves it.

Received this as a gift for an 11 year old. We were able to assemble this without difficulty but were frustrated at the end result of the project. The included band exerts too much force on the ball which causes it to go flying off track about 25% of the time. We would be able to work around this issue but for the other major problem with the product. The rubber bands (4 included) all broke within 15 uses.We assembled this project over the course of 3 evenings and at the end of it we have a broken product after less than 4 minutes of completion due to the major part of the "engine" snapping. I have emailed support to see what solution they can provide and will attempt to edit this review if and when I receive a response.Edit - emailed the company for help (info@hexbug.com). Response within a day and they are sending us new rubber bands, saying, "you might have received an older kit with older rubber bands". Upgrading my rating to 3 stars because of the quick response. We'll see how the new ones compare to the original.

Grandson loved it

Overall a fun build and decent quality. My only gripes are:- The plastic sheets used as ball barriers aren't perfect, it appears in several areas that the lamination (?) is peeling off, it hasn't affected the mechanics of the toy from what I can tell, but it does take away slightly from it's aesthetics.- Maybe 10-20% of the time after the ball is shot up and around the blue curved part at the top, the ball would then miss the return chute and I'd either have to catch it or chase after the ball if I missed it. It may be remedied by a few additional backstops placed along the side of the return chute.I may decide to video this in the near future, as I'm currently writing this review at work.