“Hydrobot Arm Kit”, Hydraulic Kit, STEM Building Toy for Kids 12+

With some engineering background, we put it together successfully right away. It took several hours to assemble and I will admit, getting the hydraulics loaded correctly is a bit of a challenge for any 12-year-old without adult supervision. Even then, I could see a lot of folks being overwhelmed by the challenge of not only assembly, piece by piece, with no room for error, to the water-loading hydraulic portion of the assembly. Set aside plenty of uninterrupted time, "roughly" first 40 pages are robot assembly, second 40 pages are hydraulics/pumps/tubing.If you're looking to get your kids interested in robotics, STEM/STEAM, or engineering/manufacturing this is a relatively inexpensive introduction to test the staying power of this low-level technology and their interest. It will also test your patience. Although we've played with it enough now that it's already showing signs of wear and the parts/levers are getting loose.Overall, great introductory toy to robotics!

A fun kit. I was totally amazed at the lay out of the peices. The engineering of the kit is astounding... the assembly is is very well layed out, I didn't have too many issues. There is a good online presentation for reference. The fit of the snap together pieces is very accurate. I give this kit very high marks..

Start to finish assembly took right at 8 hours, spread over 3 days. I am a moderately skilled senior citizen. This is no trivial assembly.The good news is that the instructions are very clear, and the parts generally fit together well. However, assembly requires *close attention* to the images/directions, which can wear you down if you try to do it in one sitting. I am tracking my hours to see how long the whole assembly takes, and will share those later.Some hints:1. DON'T throw away the little envelope that says "don't eat this". I thought it was some kind of dessicant but it is oil essential to project.2. You will need a *small* phillips screwdriver, with bit fits screw heads well, because some are tight. Lots of pressure and slow turning of screwdriver was necessary for many of the screws.3. Put a new blade in your utility knife to trim off the innumerable tabs. Update - carefully cut items from matrix with knife to avoid separate removal of tabs4. Be methodical, and careful with the **small** parts (and tiny screws). Put items in ziplok bags & containers as you go. No spare screws or springs are provided so DON'T LOSE any. (I'd have paid the extra $0.20 or whatever)5. Filling the pneumatic system components with water was the most nerve-wracking - mainly because of the difficulty of eliminating water bubbles. I suggest getting a large container for water, big enough to submerge your hand and enable you to hold items upside down when filling. Move plungers multiple times to eliminate air from cylinders.6. The filling instructions were a little confusing to me, but basically they want you to fill the cylinders BEFORE attaching hoses. They don't tell you explicitly but I think their procedure is designer to minimize bubbles in tubes that you fill with water.7. Hoses are very slippery when wet and hard to push on all the way, but a BIG help was using a high-tech "wicking" sweat rag - the artificial fiber gave a good grip on tiny pipe. Also good for mopping up spills.8. I tried to fill the little hoses by gravity flow before connecting to cylinders, rather than when they were dry. Little bubbles tend to form in dry pipe when first wetted. Maybe it helped a little. Oh, and yes, trying to correct big bubbles later, after complete assembly would be a nightmare - so do your best while filling initially.9. Installing the levers and cylinders in the base unit is easiest to do from the bottom, rather than from top as they show. I was sure I was going to crack the plastic several times when pushing cylinder assembly ( the enc with spring) to lock under/into control lever. It is very tight but never broke.10. The unit worked OK when finished - it won't replace a robot arm in a GM factory, but it is simple to use and will hopefully be entertaining to 4 year olds. Time will tell if it is durable enough for that age user.

Great quality. Just very detailed and need a parent’s help.

Bought this for my 12 year old nephew for Christmas and he really enjoyed putting it together - took his time - read the directions - started it Christmas night and the following day he had it operational! Great gift for the recommended age group.

I like to purchase Christmas gifts for my grandchildren ahead of time. I was really excited about this hydrobot arm kit. Well, it arrived today in its original packaging. In other words, it arrived in the toy box with two labels stuck smack in the middle of it. I was disappointed in the packaging. I was able to remove the labels but they still damaged some of the cardboard. Other than that, it looks like a nice project set, but for the expensive price, it should have been more carefully packaged.

I worried that this kit had way too many parts for my 10 year old. However, he tackled it and got just a little help from his mom on a couple of things. This is definitely an advanced kit and would be really hard for someone who has not built any kits previous to this one. He had to use his "engineering" skills in order to figure out why some of his pieces weren't working. He didn't give up and kept adjusting until things worked as they should. I'm giving it 5 stars because even though it had all the little plastic parts, the contraption did work the way it should when finished and my son absolutely loves it. It is amazing that the water pressure could make this robotic arm work.

My son and I tag-teamed and assembled it in an afternoon, though it requires patience and a steady hand to clip the burs off all the plastic parts. What’s great is that you can tell whoever designed this knew what they were doing and didn’t cut any corners (like a lot of cheap science sets). It’s sturdy and the hydraulics work really well. There’s an hydraulic GLOVE kit that I recommend getting first, then follow up with this for a perfect combo.