Hape Quadrilla Cyclone Wooden Marble Run Race Maze Construction Building Set| STEM Educational Learning Toys for Kids

This is a well made, fun, family educational toy. I bought it for my 5 year old grandson. I love that his parents have just as much fun playing with him with this. I think the family will get may years use with this marble run.

I started looking at marble runs for my 4 daughters ages 3-12. At first, I was intrigued by the plastic ones, mostly because of their price. However, the more I researched, the more I was interested in the quality Hape Quadrilla wooden marble runs. What I love about this set is that my girls have to use critical thinking skills to build and then tweak the marble run to make the marble run smoothly all the way down. It isn't snapping plastic pieces together. Instead it's more like building with wooden blocks and tracks. We bought both the Cyclone set and the Music in Motion set. My 6 & 3 year old daughters love the Music in Motion set. My 8 and 12 year old love the engineering of the cyclone set. Honestly, I get into it, too! I'm already eyeing the next Hape Quadrilla sets I want! I love that this challenges my oldest girls and enchants my younger girls. I noticed some reviewers complained that the set comes apart easily....well, of course you want it to come apart! That's the whole fun of it- taking it apart and rebuilding into a completely different design! Why would you want one single fixed marble run? That would be boring! The fun is in engineering all different kinds of marble runs, with no 2 alike! The options for different designs makes this quality toy endless fun for a huge variety of ages! And by the way, I PAID FULL PRICE and NO ONE gave me anything for my review! LOL

I still prefer this beautiful wooden run to any of the more plastic runs I've seen, but we lose some important usability with the loose fitting wood.There are so many good things about this marble run:- it's mostly wooden (some plastic connector bits)- it sounds so great as the marbles roll and click through the course- it's very pretty- it comes with SO MANY marbles!However, there are many frustrating aspects of this set as well. Most of these problems stem from the fact that the wooden pieces don't fit together very tightly. This is mostly an inherent problem with wood.- The overall structures are very easy to knock over, which is fine for adults, but is a big problem for young children.- The pieces are very fiddly to rotate into correct alignment, and need constant readjustment.- The little red plastic ramps consistently pop off after about 20 marbles go over them. These ramps seem somewhat unimportant, but are actually critical for ensuring the marbles proceed smoothly and have enough speed between parts.Also, it's annoying that there is nothing to catch the marbles at the end of the run. By default, you need to run around the room chasing marbles.Similarly, it'd be really handy if there were some sort of hopper or funnel to feed the marbles into at the start of the run.

Nothing ends complaints of boredom like playing with an adult, so this toy gets my full endorsement because I love to play with it. I may have made tracks during nap a time or two. 😉I bought this for a 2yo and a 5yo. Definitely think that even 5 is on the young side for playing with it AS INTENDED, however they have loads of fun with it anyway. They like stacking blocks, playing with the marbles, putting marbles through tracks that I free build, and the 5yo helps me build to plans and is learning the mechanics to make simple free builds.BUILD TIPS:For their age they need the build as stable as possible, so I always start with a circular base and keep the spiral pieces low in the build (see photo).If you don’t have marble traps for the exit, you can put a stopper in the center of the big spiral and use that as the last piece in the track to catch all the marbles.

My 5yo son opened this as a Christmas present at 6:30 this morning and it is now almost 5pm, WE ARE STILL PLAYING WITH IT!! The enclosed instructions have multiple setups to erect and give you an idea of how to make your own in the process. The tracks can be a little shaky on carpet, but still work great. Instructions could be printed a little larger and with better color (hard to tell green blocks from teal in the pictures). But neither of these issues is enough to bring down the amount of fun it is to play with this item. Even without the instructions, it's a lot of fun to figure out how to make your own run that works. The wooden set actually makes my son determine what block he needs to make the run work and is more of a challenge for him. I would recommend this product to anyone who has a child that wants a wooden marble run as opposed to the plastic ones (my son let me pack up the plastic ones for donation this afternoon). After buying this item we are going to buy more sets soon!!