I can only give it one star I did set layout of my own and it took a lot of sets to complete my layout I buy 2 regular gravitrax starter sets2 regular gravitrax expansion sets2 gravitrax pro starter sets2 gravitrax track pro expansion sets 2 gravitrax xxl sets Lots of money but it is really cool Only thing down side is (andwhy only one star) it fails much more then it making it to the end like derails on track derails on curves when drops in the hole to below using the green piece making it continues on it gets stuck there and more it’s not worth wasting your money on it I see the videos showing bigger runs but I’m very sure they had to reshoot the video many times till it worked right don’t waste your money

Amazing set - but your kids will need help with it

GraviTrax is probably the coolest marble run set I've ever encountered. This starter set has LOTS of different ramps, drops, and chutes to create some really fun models and mazes.There is also an excellent app that allows you to design your own models on the computer before building to see if your ideas will work (there's actually a physics engine that shows shows your run on the app).The app also includes 3D instructions for models that you can build. Imagine Lego instructions that you can rotate/zoom/adjust to see where your pieces should go exactly.However, there are a few caveats:1 - The initial set up and assembly will take you awhile. There are a dozen or so towers that must be snapped together and around 50 little hexagons that have to be punched out ... MoreGraviTrax is probably the coolest marble run set I've ever encountered. This starter set has LOTS of different ramps, drops, and chutes to create some really fun models and mazes.There is also an excellent app that allows you to design your own models on the computer before building to see if your ideas will work (there's actually a physics engine that shows shows your run on the app).The app also includes 3D instructions for models that you can build. Imagine Lego instructions that you can rotate/zoom/adjust to see where your pieces should go exactly.However, there are a few caveats:1 - The initial set up and assembly will take you awhile. There are a dozen or so towers that must be snapped together and around 50 little hexagons that have to be punched out of the board that you attach the pieces to. This took me and my nine-year-old daughter about an hour.2. While the app is good, the more complicated models require quite a bit of setup and patience to build. The largest one took me and my daughter almost two hours to complete, and even though she was having fun, she lost interest until I finished it for her. Once it was done, she played with it for quite a long time.3. This box is BIG - think of a box like the board game "Ticket To Ride" and double its thickness. It will take up a lot of space on your shelf. You'll also probably want to organize the pieces in baggies. The kit includes some, but it will make building easier if you sort out the pieces.I was provided a review copy of this product in exchange for my honest review

Fun, Challenging, Interesting!

This is our first hands-on experience with the Gravitrax system. We've seen it before in a local independent toy store and thought it was really cool from the display but actually getting to use it turned out to be such a fun activity. Some background to consider: Little one is 6. This is relevant later. [We are below the suggested age] Overview: Gravitrax is a marble maze X 1000. It has brick building vibes. A great display of physics in action and a wonderful afternoon STEM activity. Packaging: Nice sturdy box. TONS of parts. Good part identification. 1st Time Setup: There is a lot to get up and running. Make sure if you are planning on this as an activity with your child block off a good amount of dedicated time, it is no quick task. You have to assemble support ... MoreThis is our first hands-on experience with the Gravitrax system. We've seen it before in a local independent toy store and thought it was really cool from the display but actually getting to use it turned out to be such a fun activity. Some background to consider: Little one is 6. This is relevant later. [We are below the suggested age] Overview: Gravitrax is a marble maze X 1000. It has brick building vibes. A great display of physics in action and a wonderful afternoon STEM activity. Packaging: Nice sturdy box. TONS of parts. Good part identification. 1st Time Setup: There is a lot to get up and running. Make sure if you are planning on this as an activity with your child block off a good amount of dedicated time, it is no quick task. You have to assemble support structure pieces to use later, do some minor part sorting. Arrange the foundation board. Make sure you have enough space and a hard surface! I can imagine trying to work with this on a plush carpet could possibly damage the foundation board when applying pressure. If I were to have handed this over to my child without any guidance she would have been overwhelmed to say the least. Again, we are under the target age so this is expected. Just keep in mind if you have a younger child you will need to be involved. Building: Once you are setup with all the pre-requisites you are ready to start your 1st build. The instruction manual provides 3 levels of difficulty starting with easy... which is exactly what it is. This is the best place to start to understand how instructions translate to the positioning of the foundation board. Once we worked out the kinks and understood how placement and height are represented we were on our way. Once finished with our first build, little one wanted to jump to "expert" [we didn't, but I appreciated the ambition] The medium skill level build was in some ways easier a task than the 1st because we were familiar how the instructions were represented and correlated to the actual pieces. At this time we still have not built the expert level. Parent perspective: Gravitrax is awesome but I do think you need to really know who you are getting it for. It requires patience, problem solving, long attention span, general interest in STEM related activities. I don't think this is a gift you just randomly give to any child. As long as you know your audience you'll be sure to have some quality engaging fun :) We continue to tinker with the pieces try custom builds and my wife and I have even independently broke out the set just because we enjoy it as adults. The 8-99 age range is very accurate to the product. If I had to consider anything lacking I would say, I wish that the manual added some applicable simple physics facts to convey to children what components were doing what in a build. I think that would be an excellent educational value add to the product TLDR: Awesome STEM toy, make sure the kid has patience, general interest in STEM toys and a long attention span, lots of fun for kids and even adults. If they are at the bottom of the target age or below you WILL need to be involved. Full disclosure, as an early reviewer, I received this product in exchange for my opinion. I've been lucky enough to participate in this opportunity but I keep my word of accurate and unbiased opinions, I don't think it really benefits anyone to be anything but genuine. I hope I was able to provide some meaningful insight!

Fun, but extremely complex (crappy box)

I received this game in exchange for my honest review. Let me start by saying we have the basic GraviTrax set and are big fans. We also have a few GraviTrax expansions, are avid lego builders, jigsaw puzzlers and can solve just about any rubicks cube out there. However, these instructions for the vertical starter set are CONFUSING. It took my rubicks cube solving 11 year old and 2 college educated adults to figure out what we were supposed to do. That being said, once we deciphered the instruction code it was fun. It is very easily knocked over and hard to fix if you mess it up but does create some pretty fun and advanced marble tracks. Most of the pieces are well made but the box is not up to ravensburger expectations. It is basically two top lids that do not fit ... MoreI received this game in exchange for my honest review. Let me start by saying we have the basic GraviTrax set and are big fans. We also have a few GraviTrax expansions, are avid lego builders, jigsaw puzzlers and can solve just about any rubicks cube out there. However, these instructions for the vertical starter set are CONFUSING. It took my rubicks cube solving 11 year old and 2 college educated adults to figure out what we were supposed to do. That being said, once we deciphered the instruction code it was fun. It is very easily knocked over and hard to fix if you mess it up but does create some pretty fun and advanced marble tracks. Most of the pieces are well made but the box is not up to ravensburger expectations. It is basically two top lids that do not fit together with a cheap flimsy piece of cardboard in the inside (see picture). I can’t understand why they made the box this way. Overall, if you are GraviTrax fans this could be a fun addition to your collection, but it is extremely complex so i wouldn’t get this as a beginner. And it’s definitely for older kids. My son has been building 16 yr Legos since he was about 5 and couldn’t figure this out.

Great STEM Toy For The Kiddos & Young At Heart

I was given the Gravitrax starter set in exchange for my review and opinion. My review and opinion on the set are my own and not based on the fact that it was given to me.Having never had one of the Gravitrax sets I was excited to be getting one. Upon opening the box the plastic parts were separated into different bags and cardboard base pieces, as well as the bigger plastic pieces, were in the box. The instructions of course were included. Once I went thru the parts list to be sure I had everything, I set out to create the first track layout in the book. The instructions are very well laid out in that it shows you exactly what parts you need and where they go. If you start with the first track and work your way up to the more advanced tracks, you will understand ... MoreI was given the Gravitrax starter set in exchange for my review and opinion. My review and opinion on the set are my own and not based on the fact that it was given to me.Having never had one of the Gravitrax sets I was excited to be getting one. Upon opening the box the plastic parts were separated into different bags and cardboard base pieces, as well as the bigger plastic pieces, were in the box. The instructions of course were included. Once I went thru the parts list to be sure I had everything, I set out to create the first track layout in the book. The instructions are very well laid out in that it shows you exactly what parts you need and where they go. If you start with the first track and work your way up to the more advanced tracks, you will understand how everything goes together along the way, so when you get to the advanced layouts it is not so confusing. What is nice is that each layout has the parts that will be needed. So for step one, there is a list of parts and where they go. Then step two has the parts needed and where they go...So if you gather the parts for each step, you will know you are done with that step when you have used all the parts you gathered. The parts from the prior steps are faded out a little on the layout to help you, so you don’t get confused. As I mentioned this is the first set I have ever owned and it was not too difficult to see where all the parts went and how it all went together... The parts are of good quality and with reasonable care, they should last a long time.I am a big kid at heart and I am having a great time with this set and I am sure you will also. The possibilities are endless and there are other expansion sets you can add to create more fun!I am looking forward to adding to the set I have in the future!

Great for the whole family

My son is under the recommended age for this Gravitrax set, but our family loves construction activities and this was a perfect fit. There are a lot of pieces and required some organization. It took about 20 minutes to put together advanced designs. There is a good variety of different designs that have different moving parts for learning and entertainment. There is also plenty of different pieces for your child to use their imagination to build their own tracks. This is great for kids who are interested in STEM activities. As a parent, you may need to provide some assistance and guidance for understanding how to build it.

No Spare Parts

I was building one of the tracks with my sister when one of the pieces broke. It was small. We never found it to glue back on. The other day I started building another track and noticed that the piece with its clipping side chipped off was the last piece of that kind, and I needed it to finish the track. I checked the booklet that had all the pieces' details in it, and it said that there were only 16 of the pieces I needed, and I needed 16 for that one track. So that's how I ended up here, writing a bad review about GraviTrax.

Not worth the money

Pro - The vertical starter set is better at building tracks that actually run well due to the taller build pieces, compared to the regular starter set which we also have.Con - You need to take 72 pieces to assemble 12 pillars, this is very misleading info on piece-count for the set, and also quite time consuming to build, these pillars should have been packaged pre-built for the set. There are also 32 pieces needed to assemble 16 balconies, also misleading info on piece-count for the set that should have been pre-built.Con - The instructions includes only 2 very tall builds, 1 of which uses only 2 out of the 3 launching balls. This is disappointing as it is difficult to freely create very tall builds with existing pieces without instructions. We downloaded the app ... MorePro - The vertical starter set is better at building tracks that actually run well due to the taller build pieces, compared to the regular starter set which we also have.Con - You need to take 72 pieces to assemble 12 pillars, this is very misleading info on piece-count for the set, and also quite time consuming to build, these pillars should have been packaged pre-built for the set. There are also 32 pieces needed to assemble 16 balconies, also misleading info on piece-count for the set that should have been pre-built.Con - The instructions includes only 2 very tall builds, 1 of which uses only 2 out of the 3 launching balls. This is disappointing as it is difficult to freely create very tall builds with existing pieces without instructions. We downloaded the app and paid to unlocked the PRO features, thinking it would provide more instructional builds. NOPE, it only unlocks pro pieces to be used in the app for digital builds.Con - Similar to the previous generation of GraviTrax, the finished structures are prone to pieces disconnecting and falling off. More so with the Pro set as some of the pieces get knocked off very easily with the balls just running down the tracks. You need delicate hands to build and play, and patience to pickup and rebuild the pieces!We got this set on sale, it is definitely not worth the MSRP.

Poorly made

First off- I don’t do reviews, but I felt so strongly about this when seeing my son play. The toy has a brilliant concept and is brilliant for inquisitive children of around 7+ to build new designs and change the track with additional sets and small add-ons. However, the product could be made so much better, most of the parts are thin plastic, the base is made of cardboard. The pieces don’t positively click together like you would expect, it merely relies on being placed in position. The problem is shown when a child pushes the the button for the 3 marbles to start and everything bends and can cause bits of track to fall.During the building process of your own design, you have to pre try the runs and adapt it whilst building, the marble can fall off if you try to ... MoreFirst off- I don’t do reviews, but I felt so strongly about this when seeing my son play. The toy has a brilliant concept and is brilliant for inquisitive children of around 7+ to build new designs and change the track with additional sets and small add-ons. However, the product could be made so much better, most of the parts are thin plastic, the base is made of cardboard. The pieces don’t positively click together like you would expect, it merely relies on being placed in position. The problem is shown when a child pushes the the button for the 3 marbles to start and everything bends and can cause bits of track to fall.During the building process of your own design, you have to pre try the runs and adapt it whilst building, the marble can fall off if you try to turn to fast for example, this is all part of the fun and great for kids to discover, however when the marble falls and you try to pick it up, it’s almost impossible not to knock anything and destroy the hard work that has been put in. In my mind, this is the result of the the toy being made cheap rather than it being made the best it could. Lego have shown that if the quality is there then it will last forever, this could be an amazing product if they took this on board. If the pieces were to push together like Lego and come apart easily but when you want them too then this would be a top toy for many many years and have real potential. I could see my son wanting to go bigger and better and want more sets for birthdays and Christmas etc, but the frustration of the design will probably mean that he will lose interest and this will be the last set he will ask for.

Truly Next Level

I was given this set in exchange for my honest evaluation. We have the basic Gravitrax starter set which our kids (2 and 5) have lots of fun with. The oldest will follow the diagrams or build his own arrangements and spend long periods of time playing with the set. So when we found out we were going to get the Gravitrax Pro starter set, everyone was excited. When we received the box, I thought it was going to be like the basic set in that you could start building tracks right away. This is not the case. There are a lot of pieces that need to be assembled before that can happen. It isn’t too hard to do, but it will take a good amount of time. The new parts allow for much more complex and interesting configurations, and that means a lot more assembling time. The way ... MoreI was given this set in exchange for my honest evaluation. We have the basic Gravitrax starter set which our kids (2 and 5) have lots of fun with. The oldest will follow the diagrams or build his own arrangements and spend long periods of time playing with the set. So when we found out we were going to get the Gravitrax Pro starter set, everyone was excited. When we received the box, I thought it was going to be like the basic set in that you could start building tracks right away. This is not the case. There are a lot of pieces that need to be assembled before that can happen. It isn’t too hard to do, but it will take a good amount of time. The new parts allow for much more complex and interesting configurations, and that means a lot more assembling time. The way tracks are suspended above each other can be a little delicate and can fall apart as the marble rolls down, so there’s some extra maintenance to do every few runs. We built the hardest one in the manual and could not get the marbles to make it to the finish. I’m not sure why they would lose momentum toward the end. Whether it was a design flaw or user error, it was a bit disappointing after spending such a long time building it. That being said, it’s an excellent set for people who really want a more advanced marble course set, meaning someone that finds joy in the assembly process. There’s a certain similarity in the satisfaction you get making these marble courses that’s like putting together a scale model. I would recommend it for older kids and adults. There is a lot of delicate placement of track parts that are better suited for someone with good dexterity and patience. But all that is rewarded when you finally launch your marbles off a tower through a twisty maze of suspended tracks.