LEGO 17101 Boost Creative Toolbox Robotics Kit, Programmable Interactive Robot Toy, 5 in 1 App Controlled Building Model with Bluetooth Hub, Coding Kits for Kids

I bought this for an 11-year-old. I was worried that it might build a fantastic robot, which would do some activities, and that would be that, End of Story. In fact this is Lego at its best, remembering its roots as a construction set where you can do your own thing. There is no limit. This isn't one of those sets that builds a Car (and a slightly smaller car), but you need the engineering skills of George Stephenson to do anything else with the highly-specialised, weirdly shaped bits (here's looking at you, Lego Technik...). With Boost, the set models are just the start.Boost makes several main models, and they're very diverse. Each model is a longish build, with lots of challenge, but the builds are divided into stages. At the end of each stage you have a semi-functional model that can do something interesting, so you can try out the coding. At the end of the final stage, you have the full model, but even then the building hasn't finished: there are accessories and activities. For example, having completed the cat, you can make it a mouth-organ and explore how to code so the mouth-organ does things (plays tunes, makes it fart, whatever...). To give you an idea how Lego have achieved this: the set has a colour/distance-sensor, which in the cat model is cleverly built into the cat's mouth. Any brick placed near the cat's mouth can be recognised by colour, and the recognition can be used to trigger programmable events in the app. Sound comes from the app, not the robot, but this works better than I thought it would. The cat can also sense being moved and touched, which triggers other responses (again, once Lego have shown you the basic idea with some simple coding, you are free to code whatever you want).You can make your own accessories for the main models, or you can go free-style and make completely new robotic models. There are several ideas books available to help get you started.This set is ideal for the kid who likes lego, but tends to slide off to their iPad. It makes real hands-on building relevant to the screentime kid. You can build, you can program, and you can play, so it should appeal to anyone.Some tips: make sure you can install the app before you buy it (as the app does everything: it's the building instructions, and it controls the robots and makes them work). The app is fairly big, and we found it needed a little bit more memory than it said (it failed to install until we deleted some extra stuff and made space, then it was fine). Get rechargeable batteries, because you're going to use these models a lot. Try to work out how to turn off the screen-saver on whatever tablet you use, because it's irritating finding the thing has to be restarted every time you took a bit too long to find a brick. Get a big, low, flat storage box (we used an under-bed shoe storing container from a typical high-street cheap outlet) so you can scrattle around finding the bricks, and have somewhere to put your half-completed works. Get in lots of frozen meals and turn off the phone; arrange for bills to be paid automatically, and tell your kid's school that he/she has got explosive gerbil-pox and is in quarantine for 3 weeks. You're going to be busy...

Easy to assemble. After downloading the app, it worked like a charm.

Brought for my son for his 7th birthday as he is very into Lego and robots and is getting into coding. My son loves this set and there are so many different things he can create with him, it's kept him busy and engaged. Expensive but I think this is worth it as it has been educational as well as fun.

It is very expensive there’s no getting round it, but you actually get a lot for your money! Re whether you’ll be able to work the app, as long as you have an Apple tablet or phone running the latest IOS version it works fine. My daughter has a old iPhone 6S+ minus sim but with WiFi and it works great. But I see no reason why older devices that are capable of running the latest Apple IOS wouldn’t work. Make sure you build the robots first as it takes you through bag by bag. After that it’s all a jumble on the other ones for obvious reasons.We bought a cheap programmable robot one year and bitterly regretted it, we couldn’t get it to work.The app is great but don’t forget to turn the sound up on your device, otherwise you maybe left a little bemused. The robot doesn’t have a speaker so any sound effects are made through the device.There’s so much to build with lots of little programming tutorials along the way and we’ve only built the very 2 first things the basic robot and the all singing all dancing Verny robot. So for me this looking excellent value, the first robot is very basic if you want something quick and easy to build for younger children. Although if that’s the case I would suggest something cheaper maybe the roblox. As this is very high spec, this is brilliant for Lego mad kids. And requires little supervision and help!

I bought two of these, one for my nephew (7) and one for my niece (9). My niece would not let it go, bursting with excitement, calling me every 20 mins to update me on her progress. My nephew took it in his stride, but is equally impressed by it. Assembling the toy is in of itself an exhilarating exercise, where the child feels a sense of accomplishment at each stage, testing the new additions as if they are a real robotics engineer. It is clear to me that building the toy is designed to elicit as much enjoyment as being creative at finding different ways to make the robot do things. For its price and the different ways that this set can be constructed, it is no wonder that it won a toy of the year award in 2017. I'm considering buying one for myself. Highly recommended. Scores top marks for excitement and capturing the child's imagination, creativity at doing different things with the toy as well as learning, focussing and following through. Good luck and enjoy!

Bought for my 9 yr old son for christmas. I was a bit nervous about spending so much on one big present, it seemed right up his street but I hoped he wasn't going to be disapointed having less parcels to unwrap than his sister. I needn't hasve worried, he was so excited as soon as he saw this.I downloaded the app to his kindle - he really enjoyed using the onscreen instructions to build the thing, he said that it made him feel like he was in the future! The instructions are as clear and easy to follow as you would expect from lego.The next stage was 'coding' or rather programming the robot to do what he wanted, the app takes you through some very basic programmes - all very straight forward if you are 9 years old - and then it is time it get creative. There are a huge range of things that this very simple robot can be made to do. The coding app is well structured and easy to use. My son is still discoving what it can do.I am sure one day soon we will break it down and build something else but we are still having too much fun.