If you’re looking for a construction set that will help stimulate your kids creativity then a K’nex Imagine Building Set could be just what you’re looking for.
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The sets contain brightly coloured plastic rods and connectors that join up with a satisfying “click!” to create working vehicles, animals, moving structures, buildings, and just about anything else your child can imagine.
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In the post we’re going to be looking at the K’nex Imagine 70 Model Building Set (13419). But there are lots of different Knex Imagine Building Sets available that all contain varying amounts of K’nex rods and connectors and multi build ideas.
If you like this then you may also like our reviews of MeccanoMotorcycles 5 in 1, Kid Knex Zoo Friends and Geomag Super Colour Panels.
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What Is Knex?
K’nex is an American-made construction set that consists of multicoloured rods and connectors. Both the rods and connectors are multicoloured and come in different shapes/sizes. The rods connect by ‘clicking’ them into the open spaces in the connects.
By understanding how the rods and connectors connect and the different angles and structures that can be made kids can use their imagination to make amazing solid structures that are both ornamental and useable for play! Alongside this they are developing their skills at reading instructions, working as a team, manipulating tools, problem-solving, and of course designing.
What’s In The K’nex Imagine Building Set 70 Model Kit
The K’nex Imagine 70 Model set is an intermediate-level construction set that contains an amazing 705 pieces and instructions for 70 different builds!
The packaging is made of strong cardboard and designed to be use as a storage container for all the pieces. Inside you’ll find
a large bag of mixed rods and connectors
and an instruction booklet.
The instruction booklet contains a list of all the contents, a brief guide on how to connect the pieces plus instructions for 16 model builds. The other 54 model instructions can be located online here.
Building With The K’nex Imagine 70 Model Set
The first thing we always do is sort out all the components and place them into containers. This makes streamlines building the models as it’s easier and quicker to locate the parts you need.
The images in the instruction leaflet are clear but they do not specifically tell you what parts you need and how many of them are required at each stage. So a keen eye is needed to analyse the images.
We chose to make a Hammock (online), Jelly Fish (booket), Jungle Gym (online), and ATV Car (online). The online intructions come in the form of three downloadable PDF’s plus you can alos download the instruction booklet that comes in the box.
Hammock
The Hammock was a great project to start with. It was quite quick to make, all the connections were straight forward and it looked fantastic when finished.
It uses a good mix of connectors and rods which helps understand how to bend and manipulate them to get them into place. All the rods connect to the connectors via the ends which is the easiest connection type. We found sliding them in from the side the best method of connecting.
The finished Hammock was a fabulous size and made it something that could be used to play with other toys.
Jellyfish
The Jellyfish turned out to be another good choice as it introduced the flexible rods that can be bent through the connectors. And we were also introduced to connecting the rods midway which is a lot harder and needs quite a bit of strength to connect them together!
Jungle Gym Play Area
After the Jellyfish we wanted something more complex and decided on the Jungle Gym which we felt would offer a good play set to use with other toys.
Again this was quite a straightforward build and this time introduced spacers that are used to fill gaps in the rods (swings and monkey bars).
The finished build was stunning to look at and the photo’s really don’t do it justice!
The size was just perfect to use with Playmobil, although we needed blue-tac to attach the figures to the monkey bars and the swigs worked beautifully!
ATV Car
The final build we chose was the hardest because of the amount of rods that connected using their shaft rather than the ends.
The finished result was again stunning and the perfect size for small dolls, making it yet another build that was great to use with other toys.
What really impressed us was how smooth and easily the wheels rotated which also added to the play value.
What Did we Think Of The K’nex Imagine Building Set 70 Model Kit
Having never used Knex before we were really impressed with the size and durability of the builds. All of them looked fantastic and offered lots of play value after the build was finished.
The set is aimed at 7-12 year olds and although there are some simpler builds included it would be a good idea to have a look at the connections before choosing the build.
Younger kids will definitely need help following the instructions on more complicated builds, just because it’s hard to visualise where some of the connectors need to go. Additionally, as previously mentioned, it’s quite tricky to connect the rods to the connectors via their shafts. A lot of physical force is needed and it took myself and my teen daughters quite a few attempts to get some of the rods to snap into place with the car.
Having said that when the builds are completed they look amazing and are a really impressive size! And the more builds you make the quicker and easier they become as kids learn to read the instructions and manipulate the rods and connectors.