A picture from the set’s package showing all kinds of fantastic creatures proposed by the manufacturer.
KID K’NEX Oodles Of Pals Set – Models
Category: Plastic Building Kits
Plastic building kits are construction sets designed for children that primarily utilize plastic components. These kits consist of various interlocking pieces, connectors, panels, and accessories that allow children to build and create a wide range of structures, vehicles, and other imaginative designs.
Plastic building kits are known for their versatility, durability, and ease of use. The pieces are often designed to fit together securely, enabling children to construct stable and sturdy creations. These kits usually come with a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors, allowing for endless possibilities and encouraging children to think creatively and problem-solve while constructing their designs.
Many plastic building kits also incorporate specialized parts such as wheels, hinges, and gears, adding an extra level of functionality and enabling children to create movable and interactive models. Some kits may even include motorized components that bring the creations to life with spinning gears or moving parts.
These kits are popular among children of various age groups and provide numerous educational benefits. They promote fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, spatial awareness, and logical thinking. Additionally, plastic building kits foster creativity, imagination, and cognitive development as children design and build their own unique structures and scenarios.
Overall, plastic building kits offer a stimulating and engaging way for children to explore construction, design, and engineering concepts while having fun and unleashing their creativity.
K’NEX Thrill Rides – Carousel
Alternative craft from the K’Nex Thrill Rides set. The blue box in the craft’s base is a motor.
LOZ Dragonfly
This thing has no motor and can’t move on its own, but its still very pretty.
Gears!Gears!Gears! Space Explorers
Space Explorers set by Gears!Gears!Gears! brand has 77 pieces. It is a relatively small set, but it has interesting extra pieces. The set has astronaut figurines and the planets that will interact and move together with the gears. There also are interlocking baseplates, poles, and, of course, gears. With this set, you can build an upright construction, add the axis pieces, and decorate your craft with the gears. Then you can turn a crank on any of these gears, and watch all the connected gears rotate.
The pieces of this set are big and sturdy, so they can survive many years of use. This set is not very complicated in its concept, so you can give it to the children you are 3 years old or older. You can also mix this set with any other Gear!Gears!Gears! set, enhancing it with extra pieces.
Learning Resources is a popular and well-known toy brand from the USA that specializes in STEM toys. Gears!Gears!Gears! is a series of building sets with moving and rotating gears in them. These gears may have different functions in different sets, but you can mix them and use them together. Gears! Gears! Gears! sets show exactly how the gear transmission works, and you can use them as a colorful and simple explanation of the gear physics.
Playmobil Adventures of Ayuma Crystal Fairy with Unicorn
Adventures of Ayuma is one of the Playmobil “girly” sets. These kits always have fairies and magic creatures, and this one is no exception. This fairy on a unicorn collects crystals in a pond.
LOZ Fly
We also built monstrous creatures with 3 or 4 motors, but there are no photos. But K’Nex official site has official instructions on how to build combined robots.
KID K’NEX Oodles Of Pals Set – Plane
Another example of the ways you can use the rods to shape and outline a K’Nex craft.
Waffle Building Set Helicopter
A craft from Igrushkin set.
Waffle blocks are very popular type of plastic building blocks. In these sets, each piece have pegs and square holes, and you can connect pieces in multiple ways to build both 2D and 3D crafts. The bricks connect to each other seamlessly, almost like in a jigsaw puzzle, so you can make endless combinations in any order you want. There are many brands of waffle building blocks, Gakken and Plus Plus are the most popular and well-known ones. This, however, is a craft from Igrushkin set.
Blocks by different manufacturers may look different. In Plus Plus sets, for example, all blocks are exactly the same, the only difference is color. This old ex-USSR set, however, has pieces of differnet shapes, and some extras, like figurines or wheels. There are also a number of long, bar-like pieces that help connect waffle blocks together. You can stack many waffles on one bar, which helps to create thick and solid crafts.
The waffle blocks themselves are small, each side of a block has only one or two pegs. Some blocks has H-shape and no pegs at all on some sides. This is a downside, because you can’t connect anything on these sides. Sometimes, however, these pieces are very handy, because you can stuck them in small openings to support the craft around it. It all other regards, it is a typical waffle block building kit with small pieces.
Tiko Snowman
My nephew Debra and a huge Tiko snowman. We hadn’t enough pieces to make it completely white.
Tiko is a vintage building set, just like Tako. But, unlike Tako, Tiko pieces are solid panels of different shapes. They also connect by the edges – each edge has some sockets and some balls at regular intervals. Together, the balls and sockets form joints, so you can connect the pieces at different angles. The pieces themselves have different sizes – some are palm-sized, and others are smaller. But it’s possible to connect the pieces of different sizes, as long as the sockets match. Some big pieces have open centers – and these openings also have sockets, so you can add something there.
Since some Tiko pieces are so big, you can easily make crafts that are as tall as a 10-year-old child, and parts will actually hold together. Or you can make flat mosaics if you want to, and then roll them to make a 3D figure. There are no people figurines or decorations, but the building possibilities are endless. With Tiko, can create abstract shapes, buildings, toy furniture, and even something they can wear themselves. It’s a pity this set isn’t available to buy anymore, but there are some similar toys with the same basic concepts.
Tiko Car
A small car – again, made from the smallest Tiko parts available. Sadly, there was no way to build real wheels.
Tiko is a vintage building set, just like Tako. But, unlike Tako, Tiko pieces are solid panels of different shapes. They also connect by the edges – each edge has some sockets and some balls at regular intervals. Together, the balls and sockets form joints, so you can connect the pieces at different angles. The pieces themselves have different sizes – some are palm-sized, and others are smaller. But it’s possible to connect the pieces of different sizes, as long as the sockets match. Some big pieces have open centers – and these openings also have sockets, so you can add something there.
Since some Tiko pieces are so big, you can easily make crafts that are as tall as a 10-year-old child, and parts will actually hold together. Or you can make flat mosaics if you want to, and then roll them to make a 3D figure. There are no people figurines or decorations, but the building possibilities are endless. With Tiko, can create abstract shapes, buildings, toy furniture, and even something they can wear themselves. It’s a pity this set isn’t available to buy anymore, but there are some similar toys with the same basic concepts.
