Rube Goldberg Machine Kit

Product Description

Rube Goldberg Kit It's called chaos, but kids don't need a kit to create that, do they? And it actually is used to create really fun controlled "perpetual motion" Rube Goldberg-type devices. You (your kids will never displace you once they see this kit) assemble a frame of your choice and adorn it with sets of chutes, slides, funnels, catch baskets, trampolines... You name it. The new Chaos motor driven chain lifts a ball to the top of your construction and off it goes through whatever course(s) you have set up. It is really educational physics, and we guarantee hours of creative fun with this top quality, attractively packaged kit. The tower has a max height of 78" and a whopping 602 pieces! It also includes an educational CD ROM. Everything you need (except batteries) is included. Ages 7 & up.

Features

• CREATE CHAOS - The Chaos Tower allows kids to build and assemble a chain-reaction interactive tower to transport a marble from point A to point B using their own imagination. Your children or students will enjoy endless hours of fun with this set and exploring the possibilities. The tower has a maximum height of 78 inches for oversized excitement.
• EDUCATIONAL FUN - Young learners will get their first lessons of perpetual motion and physics in a controlled setting with the Chaos Tower. The motor-driven chain will lift the ball to the very top of your child’s Chaos Tower and start the chain reaction of events through a maze to reach the catch basket or bottom of the tower. This kit includes an educational CD-ROM for clear, easy-to-understand instructions.
• FULLY CUSTOMIZABLE - Get creative with the 602 pieces includes in the Chaos Tower set. After your kids assemble the tower frame to their liking, they can adorn their tower with entertaining additions like a loop-d-loop, trampoline, vortex, slides, chutes, and many more. The variety of this kit will provide children with endless possibilities every time they decide to start again.
• INSPIRED BY RUBE GOLDBERG - Rube Goldberg was an engineer and cartoonist who was famed for making complicated contraptions to accomplish simple tasks. These tasks that were once easy and straightforward became laughably convoluted with these intricate chain reactions. Taking these principles, boys and girls can spend time watching the marble go on an amusing journey down their Chaos Tower.
• GREAT FOR S.T.E.M. LEARNING - Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics; rather than teach the four methods as separate and individual subjects, STEM consolidates them into a interconnected learning standard based on real-world applications. Each kit is a working model that demonstrates STEM concepts for ages 7 and up.

Top Reviews

Great concept, but a sub-par in quality - needs refinement and better assembly instructions.
by Joe M (3 out of 5 stars)
December 22, 2016

I sent the following feedback to the manufacturer. This is an EXCELLENT concept for a toy and is great for any child with an engineering mentality. I purchased this for my 9-year old son and working on this together, we found issues. The toy does say ages 8 an up, but an 8-year old would not be able to put more than the basic frame together without parental guidance.
1. Pieces are very delicate and feel like they would break easily. The tube connectors seem ill-fitting as when pushed into the tube, you can see the stress on the plastic. It was hit or miss as to how well the connectors fit into the tubes and had to be very careful when attaching the c-shaped ends on the tubes - actually broke one by trying to get it to fit in.
2. We built the 6-foot tall configuration and I feel that the tower is unstable, perhaps consider making some wider foot plates to better prevent the tower from tipping over as that design is a bit top-heavy.
3. The instructions are disorganized and convoluted at best. I see that there was somewhat of an effort, but I feel improvements can be made. Assembly is very complex and frustrating (and I love puzzles too). Having only flat drawings and a photograph of an assembled product doesn't best describe how to get the result. Perhaps consider the Lego approach by having isometric drawings of the parts and how they fit together in methodical steps. I found that guessing at which spacers to use and aligning tracks and ball-drops was very difficult.

I understand that the goal of the toy is to provide flexibility to make whatever creation - fantastic in that regard. However, I feel that for $145.00, this toy was a bit expensive and a bit disappointing due to the reasons above and I would have a hard time recommending it to another purchaser. Perhaps a $99.00 price tag would be more appropriate for this product in it's current state.
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My 10 year old son loved receiving it for Christmas this year and we enjoyed ...
by EngleD (5 out of 5 stars)
January 5, 2017

My 10 year old son loved receiving it for Christmas this year and we enjoyed the time we spend putting it together. It does require some adult help if this is your child's first time working with something like this. You will enjoy this if finessing things together is not an issue for you. The parts do require careful attention as you put them together as the spec tolerances are not as closely managed as you would find with say lego parts. When completed and tuned it worked nicely and we had a lot of fun working on it together. I would buy at again
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Worst Marble Run Value & Experience
by Larry (1 out of 5 stars)
April 4, 2014

I like to study gift possibilities for my grandchildren late Nov make a thoughtful coordinated selection for Christmas, birthdays, etc. This vendor's return policy does not allow enough time to give the chaos tower for Christmas and struggle through assembling it before the deadline. It was the most expensive gift I purchased for the kids and by far the worst quality. Cracker Jack toys are manufactured to a better quality tolerance than the Chaos Tower. The Amazon review by Gerald B. Curtis (EDGEWOOD, NM) succinctly describes why I find this product completely disappointing. The poorly manufactured connections make the long runs in the horizontal version very floppy and unstable. The vertical version may work better.

The original design is great and has the potential for thoughtful, creative and educational playtime. The execution is disastrous.

I could have bought additional pieces for MindWare's Q-B-Maze that I gave him a year ago to play with when at my home. He wanted to play with a marble run both places and they do not travel well. I thought the Chaos Tower would provide variety. Instead it has been one major source of frustration. Since being denied a refund by Scientifics Online (I will not purchase other products from them on Amazon). A teacher at his school highly recommended The Learning Journey Marble Mania products. She has one set up in her classroom. I have just ordered 3 TLJ models of for a total price equal to the one Chaos Tower price.

Our grandson is here 2 days a week after school. Each day he visited my husband would spend about 15 minutes on the Chaos Tower and then walk away enraged. I am good at assembling things and very patience. This toy was not manufactured well enough to ever fit together correctly! It took a month of play time assembly sessions to put it together...I wasted hours trying to fit each piece together smoothly like other toys I have purchased...a completely unrealistic expectation with this product. I have never before purchased a toy for my sons or grandchildren that was manufactured so poorly. I plan to throw it in the trash.
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Great idea, but poorly executed
by David Powers (1 out of 5 stars)
December 16, 2012

This seemed to have great potential to be assembled into various configurations and run continuously. Unfortunately the reality did not even come close to expectations. The tower is not well made at all. The pieces are very difficult to fit together - some don't connect properly at all. The ball catcher hole allows the marbles to fall through, and I had to actually file down one of the parts to allow the marble to pass through it correctly. It is also very time consuming because you have to first construct the frame/truss and then attach the track to it. It requires a lot of little pieces to be connected together "just so" in order to get the various "tricks" to work properly. And even the marbles are not like regular marbles. They have seams down the middle and are larger than normal marbles, which will make it difficult to replace them when they inevitably get lost. All in all this was totally not worth the money and would hardly be played with at all. It's a shame because our son was very excited to get this tower.
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Lots of fun to build and watch, temperamental to set up and run
by Gabriel's Buddy (4 out of 5 stars)
January 22, 2009

I bought this for my 11 year old and we built it together. We are very happy with the results and we look forward to modifying the design but it seems a little flimsy and was difficult at time to assemble.

Assembly: One starts out making the blue frame out of tubes and connectors, then assembles pieces of track and gadgets, and then mounts those to the blue frame.

The blue tubes were loose fitting onto the connectors. This has resulted in a recurring problem where the frame separates. There are many static and dynamic forces happening during use and while assembling new components and it is frustrating to finally have made some adjustment only to find out a connector is out of place and something is longer than it needs to be.

The track fits together by sliding two pieces together perpendicular to the ball path. There are three slots that need to align and this is sometimes difficult to achieve, although assembly on a flat surface helps. The parts should go together with either part coming from the top but sometimes it is easier one way than the other. Sometimes they don't end up with the bottom of the track aligned perfectly and some adjustment needs to be made. Some dexterity is required.

The plans were good but lacked some information here and there. When there was a red component (ball changer), the track beneath it isn't specified (use the short straight track!). How each part is supported on the frame also isn't specified.

The loop seems fragile and could use some bracing to make both parts stiffer. As it is, any sideways force distorts the track at the loop which seems to put a lot of stress on it.

I think my 11 year old would have had great difficulty doing this all by himself. As it was, we did it together and that was part of the fun.

Attaching the track to the frame was easy once you got the knack for how the system works. There seems to be more pressure needed than I would have expected but I suppose that explains why you don't need more supports. It can be difficult to align all the vertical drops. You can get one lined up and accidently mess that up when adjusting the one below it, especially if the mount shares the same vertical tube. The location and number of supports isn't obvious from the drawing.

Use Issues: Since the track goes together in either direction, they come apart in either direction. We have trouble whereby the ball collector at the top of the device often separates from the track to which it is attached. Another support (not shown) has rectified that problem.

The trampolines don't attach firmly to the device; there are small pieces of rubber on the underside that prevent the mounting bracket from engaging unless you do it very carefully. This means they fall off easily and will also come off when you are adjusting the angle.

The ball feeder works well and is very cool to look at as part of the fun. My son was playing with the ball carriers, making some very close together and some far apart, so that the dynamic would change by having balls sometimes released close together and sometimes far apart.

One ball collector releases two balls at a time. That is cool except that two balls hitting the trampoline in close succession often don't make it into the basket.

Once all is said and done, though, it is very fun to look at and the adjustments can be seen as part of the fun.

Other items: The CD ROM is useless; boring old physics lessons written with primitive illustrations. I thought it would be lessons you could learn using the device as an experimental rig (e.g. a ball bouncing off the trampoline can bounce high and into the basket or take a more horizontal and faster route, try that...)

The box it came in is flimsy and useless for storage. We are still trying to find a storage solution.

There is a good deal of leftover track and a few bells and other devices. This is great in that they could have just provided the minimum necessary to make the device shown on the cover. This way my son has more ways to experiment.

I have two 3 year olds. They love putting in the marbles and watching it go. I think it will engage their creativity too.

It would be nice if you could buy some extra components (a drum head, the xylophone pictured, a spiral tube, water wheel, seesaw etc.) but they don't have very much on their website. We've made some things from around the house which, I suppose, is cheaper and more creative, but it seems they could make it expandable to keep the interest.

The manufacturer sells a box of 12 balls for $15 with $8 shipping. I'd recommending getting the extra balls right away if you could save the shipping as it is more fun to have many things going on and we've already had one ball break when falling on our concrete floor (they are metal encapsulated by plastic). The ball carrier requires balls of a specific size.

In summary, this is a great gift and very affordable considering what you get for the money. There are some shortcomings as far as fit and finish go but these are far outweighed by what you end up with.
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Wildly Unstable and Unusable
by Carmen (1 out of 5 stars)
January 18, 2019

Returned this item because we couldn't get the black connectors which conjoin the blue tubes to ever work right. The frame was so shaky we couldn't even get the whole thing built before all three adults and the kid gave up. Definitely don't recommend.
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The connectors do not fit and this is horribly made.
by Debra Sabah Press (1 out of 5 stars)
April 4, 2019

My son was so excited to receive this gift for the December holidays. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to work on it until last month. Had we done so, we would have certainly returned it because none of the connectors or pieces fit. In order to make it work, we would have to file the pieces down which we are not going to do. So terribly disappointing.
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Great Idea & Fun to Operate; Difficult to Assemble; Poorly Diagramed & Tooled
by Gerald B. Curtis (3 out of 5 stars)
November 27, 2011

Another reviewer had it right: This is a toy for a child older than eight years old - unless s(he) has adult assistance. Even then, the assembly process requires careful study and not a little intuition of what the designer had in mind.

Unfortunately, even then, the poorly provided documentation makes visualization of the finished product or the assembly-in-progress VERY difficult. Not that it's not fun to figure things out, but, for instance, the chosen angle of look of side-view photograph of the low assembly was chosen poorly (That is the one on which I worked with my ten year-old grandson - who, although dexterous, needed help; I am 71, and a chemist/functional engineer by education/employment. We chose to have a month-early Christmas this year.), thus not allowing an easy perception of where what track support items actually go.

Worse yet, the tooling of any of the connectors do not mate well, at all. Especially the ends of the Flex-Track can be put together with straight or other pieces so incorrectly that there either is not a smooth transition over which the balls ride, or the the lower-middle end-joints do not mate correctly with other pieces, thus risking that the joint will come apart easily.

I am going to assume that this product was conceived by intelligent and clever persons, but then given over to an off-shore company to manufacture and package the pieces. In so doing, the designer has lost sight of the most important concern in dealing with an off-shore, and therefore, far-away, company, that of the need to insist upon and document excellent Quality Control at the point of manufacture, and even more important, to provide excellent Quality Assurance of finished product by the designing company after manufacture and receipt at a warehouse. Neither function should be left to me, the naive buyer, lulled by misleading advertisements, especially with the associated, relatively high cost of the product.

The assembled end result is fun to operate, no question about that. I would buy this Tower again, but the next time with my eyes wide open. That said, the designer has NOT treated buyers fairly in the hopes of attracting the largest possible age-range market.

It is well that Amazon is willing to publish these reviews to guide buyers.
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Educational yet a lot of fun!
by Amazon Customer (4 out of 5 stars)
December 30, 2012

I purchased this for my four children (ages 7-12) as their large Christmas gift. The oldest really enjoyed putting it together and figuring out how to align the parts up so that the marbles would make it down the track. My daughter (9) really wasn't that much into it but did enjoy the Chaos Tower once it was assembled, putting the marbles down it and watching the contraption work. My younger boys were able to help a little to assemble but it really ended up being too tall for them so halfway into the build they lost interest...but again, once it was together they had fun standing on something to put the marbles down and wnatch them in motion. My only little pet peeve is that for as many pieces that it comes with and for the price paid...it does not come in a sturdy box to store it in. So I have to purchase one separately. For those with younger kids (ages 5-8), I recommend starting out with the much smaller Marble Run set that Five Below sells for $5.
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Concept is great; parts do not fit together all that well
by David W. Jaffin (3 out of 5 stars)
January 18, 2017

Concept is great; parts do not fit together all that well. Some of the tower parts fit together so loosely that they tend to fall apart, and some of the parts that are intended to attach to ball joints don't. A little more QC in manufacture would go a long way.

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