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.

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K’NEX Cyber-X C5 Neostrike – Crafts

K’NEX Cyber-X C5 Neostrike set proposes only 4 craft models to build – but all these models are functioning guns.

The crafts this set offers are just as elaborated and unique as the main model, and you can build some of them at the same time. The shooting models actually shoot with remarcable strength, but they may be too tough to build for smaller children. They also can become loose after certain amount of use.

K’Nex comes in two sizes: regular and mini K’Nex. This set, however, has only regular ones. The pieces in K’NEX Cyber-X C5 Neostrike set have regular shapes, common for K’Nex, but unique colors, unusual for K’Nex.

While the crafts you make with K’Nex can be quite large, some of the pieces, especially the mini ones, are very small. This makes K’Nex sets unsafe for small babies who might accidentally swallow the pieces. These pieces can also be a bit challenging for younger kids to assemble correctly. That’s why it’s recommended for kids aged 7 and older to use K’Nex sets.

It’s also important to note that most K’Nex sets don’t come with detailed crafting instructions. Some packages may only show completed toys without step-by-step guides. However, K’Nex offers a lot of versatility and possibilities, so this is usually not a major issue.

K'NEX Cyber-X C5 Neostrike - Crafts
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K’NEX Cyber-X C5 Neostrike – Main Model

Each Cyber-X set offers several possible version of shooting guns. There are fewer models than in any other K’Nex set, but it doesn’t mean you can’t build anything else. This photo by the manufacturer shows K’NEX Cyber-X Neostrike kit main model.

The crafts this set offers are just as elaborated and unique as the main model, and you can build some of them at the same time. The shooting models actually shoot with remarcable strength, but they may be too tough to build for smaller children. They also can become loose after certain amount of use.

K’Nex comes in two sizes: regular and mini K’Nex. This set, however, has only regular ones. The pieces in K’NEX Cyber-X Neostrike kit have regular shapes, common for K’Nex, but unique colors, unusual for K’Nex.

While the crafts you make with K’Nex can be quite large, some of the pieces, especially the mini ones, are very small. This makes K’Nex sets unsafe for small babies who might accidentally swallow the pieces. These pieces can also be a bit challenging for younger kids to assemble correctly. That’s why it’s recommended for kids aged 7 and older to use K’Nex sets.

It’s also important to note that most K’Nex sets don’t come with detailed crafting instructions. Some packages may only show completed toys without step-by-step guides. However, K’Nex offers a lot of versatility and possibilities, so this is usually not a major issue.

K'NEX Cyber-X C5 Neostrike - Main Model
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Chinese Kid K’Nex

Here is an interesting Chinese version of the K’Nex called Genius. The quality is good, the details are exactly the same, even the color matches the shape of the original part. Pairs well with real K’Nex. The parts of the real K’Nex have slightly thicker edges and the parts are a little more elastic, but otherwise they are almost indistinguishable. We found it IRL, in one of the children’s stores and bought to the great joy of the younger ones. Before buying it, we did not yet have screws, large parts for cars and orange hemispheres. The children built a fun helicopter. The set contains 38 parts and a colorful booklet. There saw models with wheels, which means there are other versions of this construction set.

Chinese Kid K'Nex
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EXTRA-TERRASTRIAL FLYING OBJECT

An UFO we build from the building straws.

Building straws are a popular and unusual type of building set. These sets include long, hollow flexible tubes that connect to each other at their ends. Since the tubes themselves have no special connecting devices, the set also includes special connecting parts. These parts are very small hard and rigid, and they have long pins that you can insert into the straws. The number and the positions of these pins can vary, so different connectors hold the straws’ ends at different angles. Because the tubes are flexible, this simple principle allows you to assemble countless shapes and crafts.

These sets are very unusual because they allow you to create any geometrical form you want and use the bent lines. The final craft will always be hollow, lightweight, and almost symbolic. However, you will still recognize these shapes, and they look more detailed and solid if they have more straws. Also, the straws are soft, so you can shorten them with a pair of common scissors if you need to. Sadly, there is no way to fix the straw after it was cut. Since the long straws bend more smoothly than the short straws connected in a row, the long ones are very valuable in these sets. So you have to be careful if you want to cut something.

EXTRA-TERRASTRIAL FLYING OBJECT
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N-TER Blox Waffle Blocks

This set is very similar to Plus Plus, but with simplier, smaller pieces. Just like with Plus Plus, the set has identical pieces of different colors. N-TER Blox waffle blocks have only one peg on the long side and two pegs on the short side. Unlike Plus Plus blocks, they also have square windows in their centres.

Danish Plus Plus sets are among the most popular and well-known “waffle” building sets. Almost all pieces in these sets are exactly the same – except for the wheels and the baseplates. However, even with only the basic pieces, you can build almost anything.

All basic pieces have exactly the same shape and size – they look like two pluses joined together, hence the brand name. Each piece has two pegs on the long sides one peg on the short sides, and the matching empty spaces. The pieces are thick, so the pegs are as thick as they are long. Because of this, you can connect the pieces in any direction, they will hold well all the same. So you can build both 2D mosaics and all kinds of 3D shapes, connecting the pieces vertically, horizontally, or even with an angle. The Danish schools use Plus Plus kits as an educational tool. They help teach kids basic STEAM skills and help them develop fine motorics and creativity.

To add some difference and more variety to the crafts, the Plus Plus brand offers countless sets with different numbers and colors of the pieces. There are pieces of different colors and hues, glowing pieces, pieces with glitter, and so on. The sets also may include any number of the Plus Plus pieces. There are also both small traveling kits and big gift sets.

N-TER Blox Waffle Blocks
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Clics Owlet

This Clics owlet lives with us for a few days already. Alesya asssembled it from a Clics kit and now constantly plays with it.

ClicsToys is a Belgian company that was established in 2001. It makes the well-known Clics building blocks in its own factory in Kempen. Clics building sets have square pieces of identical form and shape. They easily connect at their edges, creating joints you can move.

With These plastic squares, you can create surfaces and fold them into 3D shapes. There are endless possibilities, even though Clics have very few extra pieces and accessories. Some sets have wheels and decorative panels, but this is pretty much it. On the other hand, Clics sets usually have many pieces, so you can create something truly complicated from just one set.

Since the basic pieces of a Clics kit are squares, all the basic forms you can assemble from it are cubic or brick-like. However, thanks to the movable joints, you can assemble them at different angles, creating different shapes.
There are ways to create triangular or sloping figures if you assemble the pieces just right. The cubes, however, are the most sturdy and reliable structures this set can offer. There are also a possibility of creating a flat mosaic, combining the pieces of different colors.

Clics Owlet
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K’NEX Cyber-X C5 Neostrike

Another K’Nex Cyber-X set. This one, K’NEX Cyber-X Neostrike set, has yellow pieces and flexible rods as the decorations.

The crafts this set offers are just as elaborated and unique as the main model, and you can build some of them at the same time. The shooting models actually shoot with remarcable strength, but they may be too tough to build for smaller children. They also can become loose after certain amount of use.

K’Nex comes in two sizes: regular and mini K’Nex. This set, however, has only regular ones. The pieces in K’NEX Cyber-X Neostrike Set set have regular shapes, common for K’Nex, but unique colors, unusual for K’Nex.

While the crafts you make with K’Nex can be quite large, some of the pieces, especially the mini ones, are very small. This makes K’Nex sets unsafe for small babies who might accidentally swallow the pieces. These pieces can also be a bit challenging for younger kids to assemble correctly. That’s why it’s recommended for kids aged 7 and older to use K’Nex sets.

It’s also important to note that most K’Nex sets don’t come with detailed crafting instructions. Some packages may only show completed toys without step-by-step guides. However, K’Nex offers a lot of versatility and possibilities, so this is usually not a major issue.

K'NEX Cyber-X C5 Neostrike
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Zoob Fish

Which fish is the fastest one in the ocean? This fish is 3D. it’s interesting to hold in you hands, it’s big and you can play with it. A model Zoob proposes in its manuals.

Back in 1997, inventor Michael Grey introduced Zoob, a toy inspired by the science of motion and organism development. Zoob represents an acronym for Zoology, Ontology, Ontogeny, and Botany. Each set has rod-like pieces with joint balls and sockets on their ends. Each of these balls has small bumps on its surface. So the joints can both move and stay in a certain position if you need them to.

This innovative toy features a ball and socket connection system, mimicking the natural movement and design found in people, animals, and machines. With just five basic shapes, Zoob offers 20 different ways to connect them together.

Zoob building sets have won awards because they’re different from regular building blocks. They use plastic pieces that snap together, like gears and joints, to build all kinds of objects, limited only by your imagination. After you build something with Zoob, you can actually play with it – the pieces were designed to move after being assembled, so you can have fun with the toys you create.

Zoobs are great for helping children improve their fine motor skills. The pieces are small enough to easily manipulate and put them together, but they’re not too tiny like some other toys, so it’s easier for kids who find small objects tricky.

Zoob Fish
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