101 Piece Building Blocks Set

After a week of play I changed my rating from 3 to 1 star. I regret not buying two sets of M&D wood sets instead for a two-thirds of the price of this set... Yes, this is educational and engaging (easy for a 5 year old for independent play, can be done collaboratively with a 3 year old if he/she has a very good attention span) but these pros are outweighed by the cons: - Horrible wheel design. The wheels are like screws themselves, so if you build a car and roll it, the wheels unscrew themselves and fall out within seconds. VERY frustrating and disappointment for a child who wants to show off his/her creation or play with the toy they have built. - The tension is not great. There is a fine line between too much tension (so it is hard for a kid to unscrew) and not enough tension such that pieces get loose and undo themselves - which is the case here. Again, very non-gratifying play experience. - It is not possible to build some of the models well because the bolts are too long and interfere with each other when screwed into the cube or the "plate" sections. At first, my kids first were super excited and engaged, but because of these reasons, they soon got annoyed and frustrated and would not like to play with this construction set. It ended up being a colossal waste of money given that this set is priced like a quality product... I like that (unlike M&D) this set includes two large rectangular "plates", and I liked the "brackets". But other than that, there is absolutely no advantage to this over M&D wooden sets (priced $14 on Amazon, you can get 2 of them for two-thirds of one ETI and have approximately the same range of building options, plus enjoy natural materials). Plus, M&D offer different lengths screws and a screwdriver that actually makes sense (as opposed to the odd "thingy" -- as my child called this tool -- included with the ETI set).