I remembered how we made a Christmas tree from the Connect-a-straws last winter. Now we repeated it, and then tried to make the same one from Taikon. It didn’t turn out exactly the same, but other tree options appeared. One tree (on the green plate on the left) is more openwork, supported on a trunk from connectors, and the second (on the green plate on the right) is holding on a tube. In the Connect-a-straws set, a tube passes through the holes in the connectors. In Taikon, the hole in the connector is intended for another connector, and not for the tube. Taikon tubes are more flexible, so the figures are small and openwork-like.

Building straws, also known as building tubes, are a popular type of construction set with unique possibilities. They allow you to create silhouettes and contours of different objects and animals. All crafts from these sets can bend and move, so kids can actually play with their creations.

Instead of blocks, these sets have flexible plastic tubes, that look and act like soft cocktail straws. They can bend in any way and hold any position you want. The tubes usually attach to each other with special plastic connectors. The connectors can look and work differently in the different sets, but there are always many ways the straws can connect. The most common version is hard pins that go inside the straw’s hollow end, fixing it in place. Some connectors of this type have only one or two pins, some may have eight or ten. They also can have different forms, like sharp corners or straight rods. However, this connection type usually means that you can connect the straws only with their ends, and never with their middles.

These straws have great building potential, but, sadly, they can’t hold their shape under pressure (unlike, say, block towers that can hold something on their top). The straws’ building possibilities also depend on how long they are.