LEGO Power Functions Idea Book

Great book with a lot of cool ideas. Even without specific instructions, many of the builds are easy to figure out. My only complaint is one that I kind of have, also, for other LEGO instructions: it would be nice to have the number of studs (for LEGO) and holes (Technic) printed by the lift arms and pieces. I didn't have parity between colors in most of the builds leading to me having to count the number of studs or holes in the picture and figure out what colors I did have in that size. Doing that, when you have very similar sized pieces can lead to some, "wait, why isn't this going together," sort of moments. Still the pictures are beautifully shot and without words it does a great job showing the build enough to do it yourself!

Excellent book for the younger (and older) Lego Technic fans who are looking to start building their own non-Lego builds. The use of motors really helps as it is a large part of why my seven year old son finds this book interesting. Minimal to no words, but the pictures are detailed enough to build it (much like a Lego instruction book). The pictures are in color and it's clear that the author chose Lego pieces in contrasting colors when there might be difficulties understanding the pictures. My one criticism of this book and all the others by this author relating to Lego Technic is that it is next to impossible to obtain a "kit" with all the Lego pieces necessary to build ALL the models illustrated in the set. Even a Rebrickable.com listing would be a happy substitute if one was willing to pick up all the parts in your own, but that doesn't exist either (and I know the author uses rebrickable.com because he has a custom model on the site). So knowing that there is no companion "set" that is prepackaged or easily obtained, I would say that despite my high recommendation of this book, it is only for the kid, family or AFOL who already has a good collection of LARGE (1,000+ pieces) models. I'm an AFOL (adult fan of Lego) and have 23 sets so far... but ALL of the small to medium sets you can buy do NOT have Lego PF pieces (motors specifically) or don't provide enough gears and other pieces to provide a good inventory. The larger sets DO. So five stars for quality and usefulness BUT only if you have some large sets already in your inventory (and are willing to take them apart). Last note that is somewhat of a saving grace to the enterprising parent/AFOL. The book DOES list the parts needed in detail for both Lego PF Ideas Books, but you'all have to go thru a third party site (rebrickable.com) and create your own list which isn't fun and is time consuming BUT do-able.

Great, great resource to learn how to build with LEGO technic. I did two things which greatly improved the workability of the mechanisms. As others have noted, a number of the machines “barely worked”. I found the motor, run directly from the battery, ran too fast for the machines. They would shake themselves to pieces rather quickly, especially the reciprocating motion machines. (1) I ran the motors through the PF speed control remote (part #8879), instead of the PF remote in the parts list (part#8885). You can thus run the machines at various speeds, starting about 1/7 of the speed you get without the PF remote w/speed control. (2). I attached my remote, the IR receiver, battery, and the motor to a 32x32 base. Made it much easier to watch the machines functioning, and to change things around.

Magnificent book. Half fool of projects that can be easily made and cause great gaming feeling. Good pictures, few special pieces. My only problem is that the first half of the book is not interesting. It shows easy projects like how to gear down or gear up.

My 6 year old is obsessed with this book. He loves the open ended ideas inside, and it gets him to engage with his completed lego sets in new ways, besides casting them aside and announcing that once hes completed a set, he's done with it. Saved us money and sanity.