Review - Wicked Uncle - T4 Transforming Solar Robot

 

William is a budding engineer. Out of the 2 boys William is the one who will be building, planning, dismantling and looking at how things work.

 

From an early age he took to cooking and would use his gift becoming the fabulous Little Chef that we know he is. Yet, growing a little older he has been keen to explore other aspects of this and with that have been caught building a variety of quite complex items.

 

We were, of course, extremely pleased when we were asked to review one from the Wicked Uncle team!

 For people who don't know, Wicked Uncle is a wonderful site designed to produced fantastic toys for children on a range of ages and categories. A simple click on their site and you can browse the fantastic selection.

Their site will give you an option for gender, age range from babies to teens and by categories like brainiac or fashion and style. The easy access and then extensive range of toys available allowed a great choice for what to choose.

As mentioned above we decided to choose the T4 Transforming Solar Robot and with the advantages of express delivery it meant that we could have it the following day!

 

The robot is a clever motorised toy that uses solar power to move the current transformer robot in simple movements. There are 4 potential robots to make: T-Rex, Robot, Drill and Beetle.

 

The construction pieces came in a standard but easily identifiable clip structure. One, the green, based on cosmetic structure of the chosen robot and black which mostly deals with the motor.

 

The robot is designed for ages 8+ and William will be 8 in 6 weeks so I thought this, coupled with his love of construction, would be perfect for him; as well as giving us an activity to do together.

 

 

The manual is set up into different sections. A 4 page design for building the motor and then different sections per transformations.

 

Included in the pack you will find the wires, cog mechanisms and solar panel.

 

The panel is quite small but really fits perfectly with each design which you will see later on.

Despite the easy to follow manual which gives each section a clear guide on construction William admittedly struggled with the more fiddly part of constructing the mechanical gearbox. Using the pieces provided you must construct the cogs, poles, wires and panels and all within a small space.

 

I can see why this aspect would be great for older children but I did like taking the time in building this with William. It was a lovely moment of education too as we sat talking and building the gearbox and discussing how it would work.

 

Once complete it had a perfect moving part.

 

Yet, as you can see on this close up, the ready to build components are quite small.

 

 

With the gearbox and motor complete it was now time to build the robot!

 

This is exactly what it says on the box! A really simple clip of the letter and number designated part and then a click into place sections the model couldn't be easier to build! Saying this however, it is quite time consuming to make sure that you do each segment carefully!

 

Here you will see that William made the drill. The solar panel allows the movement inside. The cogs, turning due to the power, creates a free forward motion of the wheels and due to the clever design rotates the drill at the front!

 

Next up for William was the T-Rex.

 

Initially he has to unclick the green segments that belonged to the drill. The positive action here is that you don't need to reconstruct that part. The original designed segments allowed the T-Rex take shape.

 

William spent 2 hours create these 2 figures and only needed some adult help with some of the more complicated and fiddly parts.  

 

 

His next project is to build the robot which can be seen above. (Image used from Wicked Uncle site)

 

I loved this toy just as much as William did!

 

The opportunity to build your very own little robot is great for anyone who is scientifically and engineering minded. It also gives a fantastic introduction to solar power!

 

From a parents point of view it was a great present to have. With the added bonus of no batteries, glue, screws or any add on assembly required it meant that there was very little fuss! The easy connect pieces allowed this robot the ability to come alive with the child's hands.

 The clever robotic design allowed the solar power to create simple active movements which made every creation come to life!

 

The fact that he needed my help didn't matter that much either. In truth it was a nice activity to do together and allowed me the opportunity to sit and play too!

 

At £15.95 this is a great little gift to have.

 

With Christmas close upon us you have until 4pm in Thursday the 22nd to order and get the toy in time for Christmas. Or, take this opportunity to make note and possible point your child in this direction if they have any Christmas money they want to spend and are made about building!

 

 

 

(I was given this product for free to review. My opinions are my own and I am under no obligations to give a positive review! Please see my full disclosure at the bottom of my blog)