The toy is more frustrating than it should be because certain gears have a habit of coming apart and the crank disconnects too easily from the base. Another problem, and another reason I gave only 3 stars for durability, is that there are several necessary--but easy-to-lose--little pieces. Lose one piece, the Hermit crab won't work, lose another, something else won't work, etc. Each teensy piece has a specific job to do and no duplicates are provided.

On the positive side, the toy is cute--made of durable, brightly colored plastic that manages to be more cheerful than tacky. The pieces should last forever if you manage not to lose them. And the toy is definitely educational, providing immediate feedback on how gears work.

15 of 15 found the following review helpful:

Beautiful Toy  Apr 30, 2007
By Cheyenne Brinkerhoff-will "midnightred"
This is the third Gears set my [..]. son has added to his collection and it is by far the best and his favorite. He started out with the Gears small starter set which was a good idea. He requested Gizmos next for Christmas, then we added this per his request as his Easter gift from his grandparents. He spent hours putting it together and loved it. This set has the ocean colors, for instance the base is blue rather than the green used in the other sets. It is so much fun to watch the sea creatures move with every turn. I highly recommend this set.

4 of 4 found the following review helpful:

Pleasing, but could be so much better  Jan 09, 2009
By Brandi Downs "mistiemae1"
I'd really been looking forward to getting this gear set for my kids who love all things ocean. They were thrilled with it too... for about 5 minutes. The fun part, of course, is in putting it together. Unfortunately, there aren't very many configurations to be made of this set. After it's put together, there's nothing to do but turn the crank and watch the same thing over and over.

The turtle section of our set absolutely does not work. Regardless of how we position it, there comes a point where the specialized gear with the attached turtles no longer comes in contact with any of the other gears, so the turtles stall out. It's also a bit ridiculous to recommend a setup where some of the gears serve no function at all. Rather confusing for the little ones, if you ask me.

It does provide a fairly good lesson in how gears work, but it would have been better if the gears were various sizes and/or shapes rather than uniform as they are. I would also second the recommendation of the reviewer who suggested that duplicate pieces were a good idea.

2 of 2 found the following review helpful:

Great for the imagination!  Feb 01, 2010
By S. Lacoma
Bought when my son was 4-way too young, now rediscovered at 6 1/2 and loves GEARS. The dolfin is broken, a bit fragile (my mistake giving it to a 4 year old boy). Some of our pieces are missing, but added to the other GEARS set - it is great! Our two year old uses the fish and can put them on any gear, the octopus spins, but the head comes off (problem for having a little sister).

We use GEARS to discover concepts such as friction and have had building contests to see who can link the most gears and have the least resistance to turning the manual crank. We keep adding to our GEARS collection!