By Peter Pernsteiner 

Both pre-fabricated model kits as well as individually tailored construction sets continue to be popular with the young and old alike. They range from a wide assortment of building block systems for toddlers to construction kits for teenagers as well as intricate sets to assemble realistic-looking ships or cars.

Creative modular construction kits

What’s imperative for many toy designers is that the toys they design boost children’s creativity. Sometimes, even very simple-looking, flat, plug-in elements can be a very good starting point for this. Marioinex from Poland, for example, has been selling very diversely shaped plug-in elements for children aged 6 and up for the last eight years now. The Mini-Waffle system pieces are flat and five millimetres thick. On their edges and even in the middle of the elements, they have square holes and long pegs with an edge length of five millimetres. Since the building parts are made of soft, non-slip but dimensionally stable plastic, they can be quickly assembled into buildings and a whole lot more, given the right amount of imagination. The entire system has now had three-dimensional plug-in mini-figures added to it. Besides the standard starter kit, Marioinex also offers various themed construction kits. The new Princess theme in pink and rose is aimed at all little royalists. The smaller new sets Magic Tower and Tower of Fantasy consist of two mini-figures and 80 or 148 plug-in parts. The larger Princess starter set has 4 figures and 280 parts.

The much more complex system elements from Fischertechnik are also designed for children aged six and older, but they’re also very popular with teenagers and adults, too. The company once again unveiled some interesting construction and learning kits in Hall 4. The kits, which are still produced in Germany, include the 113-piece E-Tec construction kit, designed for children aged eight and up. Children can use it to playfully explore basic electrical circuits and to put together, for example, a smartphone holder with an anti-theft alarm. The Universal Pro and Universal Max kits consist of 150 and 330 parts respectively and comprise numerous completely newly developed Fischertechnik system building blocks, some in completely new colours. Children can use them to build a paper aeroplane catapult, an Easter egg painting machine, a ball maze, a racing car with a steering knuckle or a helicopter with an integrated cable winch for carrying loads. Last but not least, the large marble run construction set Marble Competition is being extended this year through the addition of three new sets.

Watch the video interview with Jochen Kaupp to see how you can use some of Fischertechnik’s new products to build a gigantic combination of several marble runs and automation units.

Fischertechnik elements can also form a good starting point for other manufacturers, too. In the Startup Area in Hall 3A, Mintmasters presented a well-designed drone construction kit for schools that can be used in hands-on classes in the STEM subjects of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The kit consists of an electronic unit including GPS positioning and LiDAR altitude measurement, four motors with rotor blades and numerous mechanical Fischertechnik parts that can be used to easily assemble a robust drone. It can be flown either manually via a 2.4 GHz remote control or by using Wi-Fi and a smartphone. Moreover, automated flight manoeuvres or entire flight missions can be programmed with the aid of easy-to-understand PC software that’s based on the child-friendly Scratch programming language. Even before take-off, the programmed flight manoeuvres can be clearly visualised on the PC. The drone was named Clara after the open-cast lignite mine of the same name in Mintmasters’ home town of Welzow. Clara measures 22.5 x 22.5 cm and, when ready for outdoor use, weighs less than about 240 grams.

Watch the video interview with Michael Denk to see him explain in detail the concept behind the drone learning kit for schools.

Plastic construction kits for simple experiments

Obviously, programming drones is a task that’s only aimed at older schoolchildren. The educational toy publisher Franckh-Kosmos targets a much younger customer base with its experimental robot construction kits: children of about eight years of age. First, children have to assemble the respective robot from numerous injection-moulded plastic parts with the aid of well-illustrated instructions– and then the fun can commence. The Solar Bots kit is used to build four colourful base frames for robots that can walk, crawl and roll. They can then put together a torso with a solar cell on the head and an integrated motor, which is then just plugged onto the base frame. The Flip Monster is conventionally powered by two batteries and is a four-legged walking robot that can even climb stairs with the help of a clever weight shifting mechanism on the rotating motor unit. The Boxing Bots set is used to build two boxing robots whose arms and upper body are moved hydraulically via thin water hoses with the assistance of three small pumps in hand-held control units. Children can use the two boxing robots to compete against each other and to train their dexterity and reactivity.

Watch the Kosmos robots in action in the video interview with Sandra Balser. 

Revell also makes use of hydraulic pumps for movement in two new plastic model kits in its Engineers series. The 340 mm long, 115 mm wide and roughly 200 mm high excavator on a scale of 1:24 is aimed at children aged eight years and above. It comes in two kit versions. As an Advent calendar, it consists of 130 parts and is a shovel excavator that has a realistically modelled movable chain drive and rotating driver’s cab. There are three large regulators with hydraulic pump cylinders at the rear of the white driver’s cab. Using oil or water from pressurised hoses, they ensure that the excavator arm can be raised and lowered, the front boom can be swivelled, and the excavator bucket can be moved. In the deluxe version, the model is a yellow 3-in-1 excavator comprising 168 parts. Thanks to the extra parts, it can easily be converted from an excavator into a timber loader with a large grab arm or into a crane with a hook:

Building sets for adults

Wilesco’s steam engine models are also driven by hydraulic power, but, in this case, the pressure pipes are made of metal. According to the instructions, they can be operated by children aged eight and up, but adult supervision is still strongly recommended. Wilesco has been making metal toys for over a century and the company from Lüdenscheid in Germany began producing its first small table-top steam engine almost 75 years ago. Some of these decorative functional models also come in kit form, and are more likely to be aimed at adults. The D5 steam engine will be available as an Advent calendar in the autumn of 2024. Once assembled, the base requires a table surface of 200 x 140 mm. The 100 mm long steel steam boiler with a volume of 135 cm³ is 45 mm in diameter. To operate it, you need to heat distilled water in the boiler using dry fuel. As soon as the boiler has developed sufficient pressure, a metal tube moves the oscillating cylinder mounted next to it and drives a 70 mm flywheel. A wide variety of optionally available functional models made of sheet metal can be connected to this via a drive spiral – from a miniature replica of a carpenter with a moving hacksaw to a colourful old-fashioned carousel. Other new products that have been announced include ready-made models of the Annabelle locomobile and the D7 entry-level steam engine along with a revamped working model of a blacksmith with a hammer.

Both in terms of price and the amount of patience required, the new metal construction set from model railway manufacturerLemke Collection is very likely aimed primarily at adults with more modelling experience under their belt. At the Spielwarenmesse, the company unveiled its first assembled example of a fascinatingly finely detailed 1:8 scale model car, based on the legendary Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR sports car with gullwing doors, of which only two were built in 1955. At the time, it was named the "Uhlenhaut Coupé" after its creator and chief engineer, Rudolf Uhlenhaut. One of the two prototypes changed hands in May 2022 for 135 million euros at a spectacular auction! The metal construction kit consisting of more than 900 parts is a real challenge because even the spokes of the wheels have to be fitted individually and the replica engine also consists of countless individual parts. Fortunately, the body parts are already painted. When fully assembled, the gullwinged coupé weighs around 7.5 kilograms and is 55 cm long.

In this video interview, Tobias Lemke demonstrates and explains the metal construction kit model of the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR.
 

About the author Peter Pernsteiner

Peter Pernsteiner discovered his love of technology journalism while studying electrical engineering and soon after joined the editorial team of a major ITC trade magazine. Since 1994, he has been writing as a freelance journalist, particularly on technology topics – including for model railway magazines. In 2016, he also launched a YouTube channel for tech reports, which has since attracted a global audience.