Lily's Home® Do-It-Yourself Clock. Children's First Puzzle Clock.

One day, seemingly out of the blue, my eight year old daughter expressed an interest in being a clockmaker, and this toy seemed to fit the bill.I myself have had a heightened appreciation of traditional clock making ever since reading Dava Sobel's wonderful "Longitude". But I hadn't ever really had much experience working with one directly, and was looking forward to sharing a "1st clock building" experience together with her.When I presented it to her, however, instead of being as excited as I had hoped, she was apprehensive and a little glum. It turns out she was worried because at first glance it appeared to be overly complicated. I was surprised given that it looks rather friendly and appropriate for even smaller kids, but sometimes it's easy to forget how differently children perceive things. I reassured her that we could do it together and that I'd do my best to let us find the fun in the project. Over the last year, we had started building more complex Lego kits, including an interactive robotic cat from the Lego Boost set that she had successfully built with only a small amount of help, so I was mostly confident she could handle this, given it's far more limited part count and constrained assembly space.I chose to wait for an open afternoon with plenty of free time and we started. After some initial demonstration of what to look for in the instructions, i.e. counting pegs and identifying key feature references on the chassis, she recognized that it was a lot like the Lego style visual instructions she was used to and started handling the parts. Before long she was asking to do assembly herself, which was gratifying for both of us. And after we finished, and wound it up, and it actually worked, the feeling of triumph in her was palpable. The loud racket it made added to the joy, (it's a toy, after all) and actually prompted her to ask good questions about why all the other clocks she has seen are so much quieter.Her favorite part was the first thing we built: a bell and hammer mechanism with cog linking it to the timing gears so that it chimes every 15 minutes. When she saw how simply that worked, any apprehension seemed to vanish and she was eager to build the rest.After that, she immediately disassembled it and attempted to rebuild it on her own, only to have it not work. She needed some help with the catchment and pendulum on the back, which she understandably found to be a little tricky. Then she did it a third time, now successfully and without needing any help. By the end she was even confident enough to disassemble it while it was running, which resulted in the (loud surprise!) spring unwinding all at once. After that, her curiosity seemed totally satisfied, and it hasn't been touched since. But that's OK. It did it's job.So from my point of view just about perfect for an educational toy: just enough challenge to push her self confidence, but not so much as to be frustrating. An experience of poking at something seemingly opaque at first and then learning that it's totally understandable if you just play with the parts and keep trying things until it works. I feel quite lucky on the timing for this one. Not all of my purchases hit so well in terms of her dynamic interests and ability level. Any issues with build quality or low replay-ability factor simply didn't factor for us, given how positive the overall experience was. Thank you for making this!

I am using this as a teaching device because it contains *all* the principles of a spring-driven timepiece: gear train, gearing, escapement, crutch, motion work, isochronism, oscillation, time-telling, power source, pendulum principle, beat, passing strike, power transmission...and on and on depending on the group's age-readiness to absorb and learn.I have used it to teach first graders how to tell time. I have used it to show a dermatologic surgeon the "basic" principles of a clock. (I'll call it a "clock" instead of a "timepiece" because of its quarter-hour passing strike.)I did not check the accuracy but did notice the pendulum swing is not always rhythmic. Therefore, it probably does not tell super correct time.The assembly, in the case of this manufacturer's version of assembly directions, is quite poor. Fortunately, as a clock repairman, I had lots of experience with lots of clocks. Had I not had that experience to rely on, the assembly would have been difficult, especially when inserting and adjusting the anchor escapement.BUT BUT BUT thank goodness for two YouTube videos that show assembly. One video runs so ridiculously fast that the eyes cannot follow it. The other is done at "life-like" video speed, and makes the assembly substantially easier, even though the escapement adjustment is still a little "adjust-it-this-way. Adjust-it-that-way. Until-it-seems-to-work."This is my third Puzzle Clock. All three have had *miserable* "foreign English" directions wherein the pictures are blurry and the information is incomplete. The assembler is under a "trial and error" challenge. However, there are other manufacturers of the exact same product who took assiduous effort to photograph, print, and delineate the directions:[MUKIKIM Happy Puzzle Company The Amazing Clock Kit - Construct Your own Colorful Real Working Clock. Educational Toy That Teaches How Clocks Work, and Doubles as an Actual Wind-up Clock.4.3 out of 5 stars 128$26.99 FREE Delivery Thu, Jun 16Ages: 5 years and up.]That "twin version" cost a couple of Amazon dollars more but had I had those directions, I would not have needed the YouTube at all.

When I ran into problems the provider was quick to help. Thorough instructions and a great result!

It was fun to work with a mechanically inclined young child.I could not give it 5 stars because the instructions aren't as clear as they could be, but there is always that guy on YouTube.

First, the positives: My 4 1/2 year old granddaughter and I put it together in about 1/2 hour, and it worked first time, accurate to about 2 min over 3 hours. It's entirely plastic, instructions are "Lego/Ikea" type pictorial. There is a short description of the parts and how they function to make the clock work.Now for the "could be betters": The pictures in the instructions are small, making it difficult to see details like orientation or differentiating factors among similar parts. The images were also quite faint. We made a few guesses. There's an instruction about aligning the 15 minute chime cam at 12:00, but it's not clear enough as to how it should be done, since adjusting the chime cam has to be done with the housing open, but the hands are attached after the housing is closed up. The pendulum length is adjustable, but this is not mentioned anywhere, nor is the relationship of pendulum length to clock speed (longer pendulum makes the clock run slower). The assembly steps for the pendulum and escapement (14-17) are a bit hand-wavy, as the pendulum pivot needs to align with a hole in the support piece, which we only noticed when the pendulum did not swing freely.Overall, a very nice afternoon project for a 4-5 year old with adult help. An older child might benefit from a more detailed description and instructions, but should be able to build it on their own. It may take a technically adept adult to debug and tune the clock (15 min chime and pendulum length adjustments)