Genius LEGO Inventions with Bricks You Already Have: 40+ New Robots, Vehicles, Contraptions, Gadgets, Games and Other STEM Projects Real Moving Parts

I gave this to my grandchildren (and their father). They are still having fun with all the great Lego ideas!

Bought this book for my son's 4th birthday, he is a big Lego fan. We were looking for something which would give him more experience/ideas for building different things with his lego, particularly things with moving parts.'GENIUS LEGO INVENTIONS': There is a good range of ideas in the book, including some quite simple things that most children should be able to do independently (e.g. monkey ladder, balancing scales, mini robots). There are a few that are really quite complex, and most are in the middle. The projects introduce lots of ideas involving gears, levers and rotating parts in a fun way. My son was really excited to build lots of these projects, and has been delighted with the finished results. Normally he instantly wants to break up the finished model and move onto the next thing, but these he has kept out on display. You can see little videos of lots of the projects on the author's website.'WITH BRICKS YOU ALREADY HAVE?: Lots of the more negative reviews express dismay that they were unable to complete the builds with their existing brick collection. This is obviously going to depend vastly on the amount and type of Lego you own. Listing your Lego sets on a site like Rebrickable is an easy way to assess this. We also reorganised our Lego into plates/bricks/technic to make it easier to find what we needed. We have around 2,500 pieces, including a fair amount of Technic pieces. My son and I have so far built the first two robots; we had to use different colours from the book, but we were able to make them with only minor modifications to e.g. the arms. My son understood the idea of finding the same piece in a different colour, but he needed help making more major modifications (e.g. joining a 2 and 4 Technic brick to substitute for a 6 Technic brick). However, we have also put in a small online order for some specialist pieces to make a couple of the more complex models at the end of the book that we particularly liked.CAN YOU FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS? In a word, yes. I helped with finding/substituting pieces, but my son was easily able to follow most of the instructions using the high quality photographs throughout each project.WHAT WOULD I CHANGE? Each project has a written parts list at the start. It would be easier for children if this was photographic instead, as they could then work out for themselves if they had the parts they needed before starting. I would have appreciated the official part numbers being included, as it would be much much easier to search for and order any extras.Overall, I think this is a lovely book, with some very inventive projects which will appeal to children and adults alike. It is not a book that most younger children (say under 8?) would be able to use independently, but it has been a great thing to work on together, and he has enjoyed looking through it on his own. You will need a certain amount of Lego, particularly Technic Lego, to build these models, we have about a dozen smaller sets and that has been enough to get going. You will almost certainly need to use different colours and substitute some pieces, but frankly one of the points of the book is to get you using your lego more inventively, so that is fine.UPDATE: after a couple more months of use, I've upped my review to 5 stars. We've made perhaps 20 of the projects so far, and I really feel a lot of affection for this book. The projects are super fun, and there's a lot of variety. My son has spent many happy hours working away at it, and he's managed a surprising number on his own. Our projects are always very garish and multicoloured compared to the book, but we don't mind! We've spent about £10 total on additional parts, and now can make almost anything in the book. I think that's pretty good value. There's very little else on the market that has so many good projects in one book.

This book has been fantastic for an 8 yr old boy who is a crazy Lego builder. He was thrilled to receive it as a present. The best thing since sliced bread!!!! We couldn’t have bought anything better

My son was very excited about this but it just lead to much disappointment as most things he couldn't make. Sadly a lot of bricks are required (and he has a lot!) and many specialized bricks. So this book is great if you have an excessive number of bricks. Best to look before you buy.

A well produced book which is ideal for Lego enthusiast.

One of the best lego books I've seen. Great for inspiring older Lego fans to do new things with lego.