Engino Dual Mini-Pack Flying Object

Gadgeteer Hands On Review by Julie

June 19, 2007

I'm not a kid anymore, but I still enjoy playing with construction toys on occasion. I guess it has something to do with the fact that I always wanted a LEGO set when I was child, but never was fortunate enough to receive any. The closest that I got to LEGO was Tinkertoys, Lincoln Logs and my Dad's old Erector set. They were all fun to play with, but they weren't LEGO. Today I'm going to tell you about ENGINO construction toys. These award winning toys are from Cyprus, and bear a resemblance to LEGO. Are they better than the world famous toy, or just a knock off? Let's see...

I was sent the Dual Mini-Pack Flying Objects set. This 50 piece set includes enough parts to create 2 models. A helicopter and a plane.

Like other construction sets, an instruction manual is included along with the bag of various Yellow, Blue, Red and Black components.

The components are made of a rugged hard plastic which is similar in feel to LEGO bricks.

That's where the similarity ends though. The ENGINO parts are not brick-like. They would better be described as multi-faceted rods and connectors. In the image above, the ENGINO parts are at the top and I've added a few LEGO bricks at the bottom so that you can see the difference.

The connectors snap into the rods and can then rotate. Here's a top view of a connector snapped into the end of a rod.

 

And here is what it looks like on the bottom. The connectors can also snap into the top and bottom sides of the rods and again, they can rotate. I found that my fingers became a little sore snapping and unsnapping the ENGINO parts, but for the most part it is easy to connect the components together.

The Dual Mini-Pack Flying Objects set comes with an instruction booklet that guides you through building 3 models. As you can see in the image above, the predominate image is a race car. When I saw this, I was confused since a car is not exactly a "flying object". Although there are instructions to build the car, you can not do so with this kit as it does not include wheels and other components necessary for that particular model. I found this fact to be a bit misleading and a little disappointing... Even the box features the race car model on the back, but no where that I noticed does it say that you need other kits in order to build that model. ** I later found a small text note mentioning that the race car could be built by combining this kit with other mini-pack kits. ***

The instructions do not include any words, they just show an exploded view of the model in order to give you a step-by-step method to create it.

Let's build a helicopter... Here's the rotor.

And here are the other parts needed for the construction of the model.

The finished rescue helicopter.

Here's the 2nd model constructed from the instructions.

The models are easy to put together, but they are not as sturdy as similar LEGO models. The individual parts seem to turn / rotate easily when you don't really want them too.

The ENGINO construction system is an interesting alternative to LEGO sets and the price per set is pretty good too. But the models just don't seem as fun or realistic as comparable LEGO models in my opinion. Kids that have never played with LEGO will probably not have an issue with this set, but for someone that has, I don't think ENGINO will impress them. Anyone out there a fan of ENGINO? If so, speak up and tell us why?

ENGINO sets are available here in the US from The Little World Shop.