Fun Express Plastic Balls Puzzle (1 Dozen)

I ordered these puzzles and they came in perfect condition, exactly as they look in the picture. The package provides a dozen puzzles, but since there are only four variations, you get three of each puzzle variation. They are made of a plastic material, though they are not flimsy. The puzzles continue to hold shape despite frequent handling. They provide challenging solutions and are fun to use. Even after you have solved a puzzle a few times, it can still be challenging to put back together, as each piece must be put back in exactly the right place and at the right time in order for each puzzle to come together.The puzzles do not come marked with variations of difficulty, though in my personal opinion, the round one is the most challenging to solve. The puzzles each come individually wrapped with a cheatsheet that provides instructions on how to solve the puzzle, just in case you absolutely can't figure it out. They make great gifts because of this - I plan on using mine as stocking stuffers this year. They're also just great busy-toys to keep your mind/fidgety hands off of something more distracting or counterproductive. I keep one on my desk because I can't sit still and it's helped a lot!

You get 3 each of 4 different puzzles. As you would expect, these are made from really light plastic, but they all work as intended and I didn't see any way they could break. These are individually packaged and each one comes with a little cheat sheet how to solve. I haven't actually read the solving instructions so don't know how good the instructions are, I just tried to solve them on my own. I found they range in difficulty where the easiest I was able to solve in 30 seconds and the hardest took me two hours and required me to enlist another set of hands to hold the pieces in place. I'm still not sure if it is possible for one person to put the hardest puzzle together without some additional help or some holding device, so I would be hesitant to give it to a kid unless they had special puzzle solving skills.

Very cheaply made and really poor instructions that came with the puzzles, having poor diagrams, incomprehensible directions and too difficult for an adult let alone a child. They were not expensive but not a good value for what you received.

I bought these for a bunch of nerdy 9 and 10 year old kids and they were a hit. Before I brought them to the class I tried putting a couple together, and you should definitely do this before you distribute to a group of young-ish kids (I probably wouldn't give them to younger than 9 years old because they're a little tricky). You know how kids are--they only want to do it for about 4 seconds before they give up if they don't figure it out right away. But, if you can show them it can be done they get really excited about it and then they loved it and had fun trying again and again. The one that looks like a star is the easiest, the one that looks like a ball is next, the intersecting wheels is difficult and then the one that looks like cogs is very difficult. I couldn't do it--I think you need four hands. But overall, it was a really great value and fun prize for the kids and better than a lot of the throw-away party favors you usually see.

The first out of the four puzzle’s I opened was the “Gear” looking puzzle jumble (Net-C). I sat and toyed with the puzzle and the instructions for a solid twenty-minutes after disabling the piece. For starters, it had my full undivided attention. I like concentrating on perplex things. Overall, I could not get the puzzle back together. It’s honestly not the best quality. The plastic for the puzzle is very cheap and flimsy. I thought I broke some of the necessary plastic to the puzzle disabling it, when I failed to complete its unity after connecting only three of the gears.The second puzzle I opened was (Net-B) which consists of six semi-circled arrangements. This piece had my attention more than the gears puzzle for sure. Disabling it was almost a mission. The piece was held together strong and tight. It took me about five minutes to disable the parts after noticing the orange semi-circle differed from the rest. Sliding that over allows for another semi-circle to slide as well, and “BOOM”, the whole thing fell apart. I really don’t like how it is so complex to hold together when fixing its figure and putting it back together. It will only hold together in a tight manner when all the pieces are in unity.The third puzzle I toyed with was the orb like puzzle which was my personal favorite. The sphere like matrix consisted of nine different puzzle pieces. I liked this one the most because of the framework and how it held together when constructing its figure. I had the most fun with this one in particular because I was fascinated by the structure, how each piece fit, and ultimately how it held together. I broke it down multiple times just to put it back together. Truly, a great brain exercise.The fourth and final puzzle was the jagged pyramid arrangement (Net-A). This one fails to hold steady unless in consensus with each individual piece. I don’t enjoy trying to put together a puzzle while pieces I previously maneuvered are unstable. Also, this puzzle is the opposite of smooth to the touch. The edges are very jagged. The puzzle itself is the right kind of complex though. Overall, this has to be my second favorite out of the four because of its intricate design.