Junior Block

A construction set that comes with a drill. Strips, plates, wheels, nuts and bolts, and an orange power drill that drives the screws in — so a child assembles a crane the way a crane gets assembled, and takes it apart the same way when they want the next model.

What it builds

• Using a tool properly: line the bit up, hold the nut, run the drill, stop before it strips
• Following a plan across thirty or forty steps without giving up halfway
• How machines hold together — that a crane is plates bolted to a frame, not a shape
• Designing off-plan, which is what happens once the ten models are built

Why we stock it

Block sets click together, so the building is over in minutes and nothing is learned about how things are held. Here every joint is a screw, which makes it slower and better — a model that took an hour does not get kicked over, and a child who has driven two hundred screws has a real skill in their hands. The drill is what makes an hour of screwing bearable, and it is also the reason a six-year-old will pick this up rather than be handed it.

The details

Age

6 and up

Pieces

552

Models

10, with a printed manual

Tool

Toy power drill

Also included

Spanner and screwdriver

Joins

Nuts and bolts throughout

Rebuilds

Yes — every model comes apart

In the box

The pieces in sorted trays, the drill, the hand tools and the model manual. Nothing to glue and nothing permanent — the same 552 pieces make all ten models, one at a time.

Care

Build on a table, not a rug, because the nuts are the pieces that vanish and they vanish into carpet. Count the tools back into the box at the end; the set is fine without one plate and useless without the drill. Wipe it with a dry cloth and keep it out of water.