I got this set for my 5 year old son, and while I was a little worried about the suggested age range, he was so excited to build a robot that it didn’t present a problem. There was one step he needed help with early on, and in his defense it was confusing, but after that he built the whole set with very little help. Connecting the last treads to complete the loop can be a little difficult, but my son can do it if he really tries, but he usually will ask me to do it.

Of course I can only comment on the main build, the robot is so much fun that my son has no desire to ever build the animals. But the robot is amazing. I actually felt it was a little small, seems larger on the box, but my son has no issue with the size.

The robot is incredibly dynamic and very playable with. He actually drives on a central wheel (not the treads) that is mechanically connected to the treads so that they always move in unison. I feel like this would be a great engineering lesson for an older kid to learn how his base works, but my son is a little too young for that. I’m not even sure he realizes that it is the center wheel that is driving the robot.

After that the body and head both swivel and bend at their joints as do both arms. One arm features a flash light, as it ingeniously uses what looks like an engine to direct the light from the light brick. The other hand use two flags as a hand that can pick things up (although it lacks the friction necessary to really hold objects). What you wind up is essentially with a very impressive action figure that can make an infinite number of different poses.

The set also comes with a few extra bricks that depict gems in rocks. Usually I find these types of objects pointless, but in this set they are actually brilliant. My son can turn off the lights and then uses the robots flashlight to search for them and the translucent yellow gems really do look like treasures under the light.

This is a stand-alone set as my son strictly plays with only this set, those little gem builds really give him everything he needs to have fun. So this is definitely a very unique set for him as he typically combines superhero, Star Wars, and police sets for play. The robot doesn’t really fit in with those other sets, plus is at a much larger scale, but it offers so much to play with that it is great all by itself.

I highly recommend this set, especially if your kids love robots. I would think of it almost as getting them an action figure. And certainly their is a lot to learn from the mechanics of the base.

We do own a programmable robot which my son loves as well, but this set is a very different type of toy and offers him a robot that he can manipulate with his hands. I would say that for a young child this Lego set is actually more fun than remote control or programmable robots.

I highly recommend this set for your kids. Whatever Legos they already own, this is a very unique set and offers endless possibilities for play (and that is without building the secondary builds).

This set is exceptional value for money, functions wonderfully, and is an excellent parts donor both for the treads and the blue body color.

The fact that you get a light brick in a $20 set is just gravy as far as I'm concerned.

Tracks work flawlessly on any surface thanks to geared and tired rear axle.

Only flaw is the 'hand' which doesn't really have the ability to hold on to anything particularly well.

Highly recommend :D

Cute Pose-able Robot

As soon as I saw this set highlighted on Brickset, I knew I wanted to pick it up as soon as possible. I'm quite fond of robots, so it was an easy choice.

Box

It's the usual thumb-tab box that AFOLs dislike. I cut mine open with a sharp penknife so I don't damage them.

The design on the box is attractive, showing all 3 sets in both sides. The visual effect for the light brick is quite nice too. Something I couldn't reproduce in-camera when I took a shot of mine this morning ;-)

Parts

There are no rare parts in this set according to the Brickset inventory.

I don't have many inverted half bows, or whatever they are called. They are a new part, AFAIK, and don't appear in the Brickset parts list yet. There are two in this set in Light Bluish Grey and there are very nice to have. The others I own are from very recent sets.

However, there is a nice selection of parts in Medium Azur, the rarest being a Brick With Bow 1x4 that has only appeared in 5 other sets. Most of those sets are recent. Otherwise, I don't think this set will make a very good parts pack without a significant discount unless you want lots of lights and ball joints.

Price

The set has a price per part of £0.088/$0.098c/€0.088, which for a Creator set doesn't seem that good. Other similar themed sets such as #31031 (Rainforest Animals), #31032 (Red Creatures) work out much cheaper, although #31034 (Future Flyer) is more in line with this set and is more expensive per part.

The inclusion of a light brick perhaps skews that somewhat: they sell for over £2 each on BrickLink in new condition and only appear in a few sets released each year.

But this is a cheap enough set for an AFOL and price wasn't a consideration when I decided I wanted this.

Building Experience

There are three instructions books, one per model. The instructions are very clear and should be no problem for experienced builders under the target age. I know my nephew would have had no problem with this one when he was 5; he's a bit of a master builder.

I try to build sets like this from the box art, rather than the instructions. Without any rear views, I struggled with this one.

The arms, head and base were all quite straight-forward. The torso was problematic. I could work out the front easily, but the rear details were missing, so I gave up and used the instructions.

It was fun to build and I didn't make many mods to the official build.

Mostly, I spaced the wheel with tyre in the center by using the two spare yellow 1/2 bushes that were included rather than offsetting it with one red bush as per the instructions.

I had two spare yellow 1/2 bushes because I replaced one on the right arm with a 3M technic lever / half beam so that I could hold the light brick in the on position while I photographed it.

I only built the robot. The other two sets are very cute and I'll maybe build them at some point, but I'm not convinced I want to give up this cute robot just yet. I guess I should have build the robot last!

Playability

It's very swooshable, zoomable or whatever you do with robots on tracks.

I had fun putting it into a strong-man pose and photographing it, as you can see below in my shot from flickr:

Conclusion

This is easily one of my favourite 3-in-1 Creator sets and one of my favourite robots and I highly recommend it for anyone in the target range of 7-12 as well as TFOLs and AFOLs. They really should have put 7-99 in this one :-)