Mini Strandbeest Model Kit

I thought this would be a fun activity for me and my eight year old to work on, and it was. She was able to help, but as you can see from the other reviews - it probably isnt realistic for an eight year old to complete it on their own. Even with guidance, youll likely find that you do most of the model - or you could just spread the process out more. For most of the steps, the model is easy to take back apart if you make a mistake. It seems very fragile while putting it together but holds together very well once assembled. The instructions are okay. I felt the image for one step was poorly represented and I ended up looking to a YouTube video as other reviewers have suggested. That quickly took care of things. These models are cheap, high quality, and a nice launching point to talk about art and mechanics.

Not hard to build and works amazing!

I made this for my dad as part of his Holiday gift. He enjoys the Strandbeests by Theo Jansen and while this is a knock-off, it looks and works amazingly. I do want to get the official licensed models as well but this was my little trial to first see how hard or easy they would be to assemble.

This was thankfully much easier than anticipated. It's amazing how organic and simple it all flows together considering it looks so complex design-wise.

FYI -there are youtube videos if you find the instructions too cryptic. I found the directions to be clear enough but other reviewers found the videos to be helpful so I checked them out after I build mine and they seem like a wonderful way to check your progress as you go. (Wish I found them sooner since I second-guessed myself while building mine. Luckily, everything was in working order.)

Assembly is a bit tedious because of small parts and a few diagrams that are difficult to decipher - the manual is all black & white and in a few instances it's difficult to see what goes where ... but it's not terrible. The model would be much cooler and likely much easier to assemble if the various parts were made of different colors and the manual reflected this. The model works well and is very efficient. One can actually make it walk just by blowing on the fan (but takes serious lung power to keep it going) ... it will actually walk just from vigorous fanning with a fly swatter.

Assembly is completely press or snap together, and many parts necessarily fit loosely so it can move without much wind. As a result, it's not sturdy enough to handle a lot of abuse, but should last quite a while if handled appropriately. If you're looking for a benchmark, don't expect it to stand up to rambunctious play. You just power it with wind, and watch.

I've long been a fan of Strandbeests, and on seeing I could build one I jumped for it. The instructions aren't written very well, but once you get the gist of it things go pretty smoothly; I was able to detach the parts, trim the flash and assemble the little beasty in about an hour. The quality of the plastic is lot better than I expected, and nothing was missing.

When you first turn the crankshaft and the legs start to move it's actually a bit eery.