Ravensburger GraviTrax PRO Giant Starter Set - Marble Run, STEM & Construction Toys for Children Age 8 Years Up [Amazon Exclusive]

The only way to get into gravitrax. Bought for a 7 and 5 year old, this has provided hours and hours of entertainment. It might seem like far too much to start with but you really want this much for 1 kid, let alone 2, to really play around with ideas and actually have fun. We've since purchased more towers, a few expansions and some third party 3d printed parts and there's no sign that we are anywhere near close to tapping out with this stuff - the designs are ever more efficient but the box is still more or less empty at the end of a building session.

Right, this is obviously a dysfunctionally massive box of plastic. However, if you are like me, you've probably scouted a few reviews, seen a few people suggest that you need to spend a chunk to make GraviTrax fly, stumbled across this, and are now looking at it with a mixture of horror and bemusement, wondering if it is really a good idea for your [insert age here] year old. And wondering - tbh - what the hell is in this box, and what isn't (should you wish to get an expansion so there's also something smaller / complementary to open alongside it).PackagingSuperb. Comes in three sub-boxes (think 'hardback books / DVDs in a boxed set' style), which all fit into the jumbo black / slate grey square jobbie you can see somewhere on this page. Robust construction. Everything should fit in there. Good legs on it. Yes, it *can* be tidied away.Playing with itBeware that this needs 30-50 minutes of assembly. If this is a big present, for the love of god crack open the box and assemble it beforehand. It isn't difficult once you know what's what, but when you first open it, if you DON'T already know what's what, you're in for a good fifteen minutes of confusion as you try and work out what the hell all the bits are and how they reconcile with the pictures in the assembly book.There's a set of 8 cardboard tiles - Ravensburger's puzzle-building heritage coming in here - that slot into one another to make (most obviously) a 2x2 or 4x2 grid (see pics). They're pretty easy to get out, but frankly massive. I benefit from being a single parent who has given up on all socialising, so don't mind sacrificing our daft-massive dining table to this for the foreseeable. If you don't have half an acre of (preferably level) table top, this will need to be put away and gotten out regularly.EVERY piece has a hexagon-shaped set of clips on the bottom. They can consequently clip in to the hexagon shaped squares on top of other bits, and hexagon holes in the cardboard. It's all fairly robust. 'Yeah, my 7yo knocks it over all the time' robust, but it does work pretty well (and does say 8+). Some pieces feel a bit half-baked, like the 'double transparent hexagon piece,' which in principle could give you an extra cantilevered hexagon to play with (which is often v v useful) but which, in practice, needs something very heavy on the cantilevered side or it risks tipping up. Mostly, though, it is sensible and well thought-out.Getting to grips with itThis really took a few long stints of grumbling and confusion, and several waves of insight: 'there aren't enough of these; oh, I'm using it wrong'; 'there aren't enough high pieces; oh, I'm using them wrong'; 'why doesn't this fit in there; oh, it's too low / high'; 'why do my balls keep falling off the track; oh, I'm misunderstanding their speed'; 'why are there so many ways of SPLITTING balls and so few ways of bringing them back together...'I THINK I have now resolved all of these and, yes, it is now fairly easy to assemble a fairly massive track STARTING WITH THE SIX-BALL LAUNCHING STARTER in a fairly short time period - say, 10 mins? 15? For some genuinely impressive results. I'm 42, though, and my 7yo isn't quite there. Older kids probably would be. There are some rules that aren't really explicitly set out about height differences, turns, using rails instead of straight pieces (you will have dozens of rails, only 5-10 straight pieces), about the actual decent sense of having long and low tracks and not trying to build daft high straight away (and e.g. only stacking the raised see-through platforms on a stack of three 'lift' pieces and not 7!)We did have an initial two days of quite enjoying it, but not really getting anywhere - so much so that I finally crumbled and built one of the 'example' setups in the back of the book. Itself a bit of a disappointment because, presumably bc they want it to work, it didn't use many special bits! It DID work, though. And was fairly cool. And the 'rules' are now fairly engrained in me and, like I say, it's fairly easy to build a big track quickly.Current state of affairs...We've had it a couple of weeks around Christmas (my son has obvs spent some time with his mum, the GraviTrax lives here). He can choose what he does for bedtime, and every single occasion it's GraviTrax. I enjoy it. He enjoys it. We make some pretty cool things together. I have no regrets - this was a good buy.Expansions (what it comes with)Right, honestly, it comes with a pretty great selection of bits and bobs. You can build fairly high (but not daft high) and you can get a good range of genuinely decent tracks going. Where it falls short (IMO) is in GETTING THINGS TO GO HIGH AGAIN. If you only want them coming down, it's pretty good. But if you want them to gain height, you have... ok, two magnetic cannons, a hammer (really only works on level surfaces, but it is there) and a scoop. That'll get three balls back up 3-4 tiles of height, but that's all of your 'raising' options gone.We've bought the catapult (which is a bit weak, because there is nothing to catch it!), the lift (which my son thinks is AMAZING), and the flipper (which is great). And an extra magnetic cannon. These are all good additions, and allow a bit more multi-levelling to take place (goes DOWN goes BACK UP comes BACK DOWN). Oh, and the jumper! Which is a complete hero. Love it.We've also got the spiral which, again, my son loves to bits. Think two whirly slides of adjustable height.This massive box also comes with about four (?) VERY TALL 'pro' gidgets, virtually none of which I understand. I mean, one of them (the splitter?!) does one thing if a ball comes at it FAST from one direction, and different things if balls approach it slowly. Another can take balls from 6 directions and release each (a fair bit lower) on the diametrically opposed side - ok, I get that. Others have six outputs at the bottom AND CAN ROUTE ANY BALL TO EACH OF THEM, which is just a logistical nightmare - again, there are more ways of splitting tracks than bringing them back together, and this is a perennial problem.Oh, we've also bought the zipwire - again, hilarious and much approved-of by my son. And... I think the loop the loop came with the giant box? That is good, though one that takes a fair bit of time to crack (you need to use the special speed track from a significant height to get it to work).OverallOverall, this is great. It's got a learning curve, it benefits from some additions, there are a few bits here that are frankly a bit too complicated for me as a 42yo Oxbridge PhD to crack the logistics of. However, it is an applied, impressive, whizz-clicky thing that gets all kinds of balls going all over in impressive ways. My son loves it, thank goodness.

Gravitrax is a real gem in terms of entertainment and education - for kids and adults alike. But it is horrifically expensive for what it is and most items should be priced at a third or half of what they retail for. Even more irritating is the fact that it is almost impossible to buy individual elements without having to pay for unwanted extras. Ravensburger's rather cynical marketing policy in this respect often makes it more economical to buy entire starter sets just to get the items required. This should have got 5 stars, it's lucky it got 4.

Used product, not complete, missing box 1 of 3, which would have included the manual. Shipped in original box, no protecting carton. Returning this big set would have cost me an additional 25 pounds! Ravensburger client support does not respond. Very disappointed.

I bought for my kids , they love at first sight and start build and have fun . after one or two , they totally lost the interest . several reason .1. it's fragile . I am not mean product itself fragile , after you finish the construction , its very fragile. just accidental touch or , the pieces will disassembled , you need to fix it .2. It's bulky , not easy to see the marble run. you suppose to enjoy when the marble run , but reality is not like that . you can see fantastic marble run only on YouTube with special camera effect.3. Not easy to play with . if the ball run under ( happen very often ) , you need somehow destroy the building , unless you had tiny ( I mean really tiny ) hand to pick it up . otherwise , you need to destroy some part to re-build again .4. Not sure about this , this is one of the good example of a product which spend more for advertisement than product itself , overpriced item.

I love marble runs. I have many, from inexpensive ones, to home made ones to THIS. Yes I ought the GIANT set, the thick end of £200. But man, you get what you pay for. THE best quality parts, great connections and very well thought out add-ons. It's top quality, class, very very very satisfying to build and watch! They don't get any better than this. (The instructions are brilliant btw. But you know, you can build whatever marble run you want with this set.)