Power Your Fun Fun Forts Kids Tent - 81 Pack Fort Building STEM Toys Kit, Construction Toys Play Tent Indoor and Outdoor Playhouse for Kids with 53 Rods and 28 Spheres (Red, Blue)

This has been a great gift for my boys! It's an awesome STEM toy. They are 6 and 4, and they love making forts. The parts are a little more difficult to assemble for my 4yo but my 6yo does really well with them. They require some strength at times when the poles are inserted into the balls. Not all of the holes are the same size, and some are impossibly small. However, there are so many pieces, and options for holes, that most the time the balls can be twisted to fit just right. I'm the type of parent that doesn't mind if my children are given a little hard work when they are playing. It helps them down the road with problem solving. The sturdiness is not an issue. According to some of the reviews, people claim that it can't hold up a blanket. I think these people are just incompetent when it comes to building a structure. I had no difficulty helping my 6yo build this large fort and many others, and it has held up a sheet perfectly every time.

…Assembly Not Intuitive… Good gift for my 5 yr old grandson…BUT—-he may have destroyed/lost assy instructions. However assembly for any suggested design should have a very observable “Top/Bottom” orientation -I found one that worked with slight indentions, so balls could be easily rotated to correct angle for each purpose of straw insertion. A 5 yr old just wants to jam them in anywhere. I suggest the indent for touch and a color or hex hole displaying “up” orientation for intuitive assembly to reduce any frustration, except for those that want to “solve” the puzzle—me… the erector set idea is great, size is great, all is great except my large grievance. If assembly isn’t “straightforward” the continuous enjoyment doesn’t happen and the toy will get poor ratings/sales.

UPDATE: I am giving more stars because the company reached out to me promptly to send a replacement. Great customer service. I gave this to my kids, 10, 6, & 2, for Christmas. They have pulled it out a couple of times and quickly gotten frustrated with the difficulty in assembling. I tried to build a structure myself today and agree it is too hard to put the sticks in the balls. Some of the holes also have some extra foam that makes it impossible to insert the stick. I sure wish I had looked into the problem the kids were having before the return period ended. This is a great idea for a kids toy, but poor construction.

Its hard to connect the balls to the stick and it kept falling apart. I read how to put the stick in the ball and it still didn't work. I love the idea but it's not worth it if they cant use it. ***Update *** I want to thank the company for reading my review and they sent me another one in mail. The sticks stayed in the ball and my kids really enjoyed it. Thanks again for sending me us a card as well. Thank you for listening!

I have mixed feelings on this purchase. While it's fun for my daughter to play with I'm a little disappointed in the product at this price. First, DON'T waste your money on the glowing version like me. Trust me what seems like a measly $5 isn't worth it unless you want green to begin with. The glow factor is laughably weak and dissipates really fast. You essentially need a high power flashlight directly against it to get it bright enough to see in a dimly lit room. In the dark it's _barely_ visible after being in a normally lit room. The glow feature is 100% useless. Second, the pictures in the listing are misleading with the kids shrunk to make the product appear larger than it really is. Read the measurements and you'll realize you're not building a fort with just one kit. Do the math and you'll realize the kids in the picture have 6" diameter doll sized heads. False advertising at it's best. This leads me to the price, which I almost want a second kit to build stuff that's actually cool for the kids but $35 is a LOT for some plastic sticks and balls that are pennies each to produce. This kit would still be profitable at $15, let alone $35. This is way too expensive for the several dollars they've spent in plastic. Plastic has gotten more expensive the last few years, but not _that_ expensive. Now I'll get to what's good about it. The difficulty to assemble people claim is probably weak mothers and grandmothers that lack the strength to shove the rods in the spheres. It takes a bit of force but you'll quickly realize this is necessary as they'll quickly loosen to a manageable amount of force needed. If they were easy to shove together at first they'd fall right out after they get used a little. This was a good idea by the manufacturer when my 2yr old can pull them apart easily after only a few hours of tinkering with build ideas. When it comes to the durability this is also what makes it not so sturdy. The pieces have a decent amount of flexibility to them. This is great to make the pieces themselves near indestructible, but that flex is going to make your kid's dream castle sag without structural integrity. Think of the flexibility of a pool noodle. I tried putting a fairly thick blanket on her new "castle" to have it topple immediately. Switching to a black satin sheet off my bed to block out the light so she has a hidey hole was a fine remedy. Will I buy a second set? That's a strong maybe because I want to build bigger and more intricate things for the kids, but I'll be doing it knowing I'm paying way too much for what I'm getting, which is $5 in plastic with a 700% markup. Don't think I'm negative overall on the product, I just want people to know what they're getting. It's smaller than it appears. It's flexible so curb your expectations in what you'll build, but it's great fun for those of us that grew up building forts out of mom's couch cushions and want to do the same for our little ones. It's hard to put a price on that.

One of the best toys I’ve purchased for my child! It’s a toy that is mentally, physically, and creatively stimulating. We have so much fun setting up forts and playing in them. May even buy another set to expand on what we can do! Even have purchased since as gifts because they are so great!

We put it together the first time without reading the instructions and got frustrated. Once we understood how to build it, it became much easier. Unfortunately when you bump it the whole thing falls apart. What fun is a fort that can't be bumped? I don't think it glows well at all. We left it. It sitting in a well lit living room for 2 days and it still didn't glow well. So then I took it outside to sit in the sunshine for a few hours, and still minimal glow. Finally, I put some battery operated lights around it and tossed a blanket over it. Of course, the blanket collapsed it. So I rebuilt it and tossed a sheet over it. When my 3-year-old crawled in, her hip bumped it and it collapsed again. This is not a great value, and it does not hold up. Very disappointing and not fun at all for my kids.

Nice small package to make something big and fun !