Review: Luciana's Maker Station

Happy 2018! It's been a minute since I posted, but I'm here today with an exciting post. The start of every new year brings a new Girl of the Year. This year it's Luciana Vega, an 11 year old Chilean American who has a passion for space and wants to be the first girl on Mars! I am thrilled to see another DOC as well as AG expanding their sights to include girls interested in science. Luciana gives me major feels- as a child I loved science, especially involving space and dinosaurs. Needless to say she came home with me on the 1st along with a good chunk of her collection. I've got so many things to review; new moddie stuff, LIZARDS, and Luciana's first book! Today I'll be looking at her Maker Space set which retails for $100.00. Sending out a major thanks to my incredible grandparents who surprised me with this as an early birthday gift. 

Luciana!

Luciana uses her station to design and build an inventive robot for a robotics competition. Incudes tools of the trade such as:

A robotic arm that can pick things up
A workbench for tinkering with two shelves and two bins
A poster, photo, and two clips to hold them
A measuring tape, screwdriver, and set of screws for building
A pair of safety goggles and apron
Three graph papers and three papers for ideas and sketching
A solar system model of the planets
A pretend terrarium for plants
A sticker sheet for decorating
Two MEGA CONSTRUX™ construction sets for a satellite and a rover, plus a MEGA CONSTRUX™ playbook!
Batteries included.

I purchased Luciana's Maker Station on January 1st 2018 at her launch event. The MOA location only had it displayed behind plexi-glass so I was pleasantly surprised by some of its features when I got home and unboxed it. The station itself is very easy to assemble and comes in two pieces. You click the backboard into place on the main frame and it's ready to go! One thing I love about this set is that the set-up of the desk is fairly customizable. You can choose where you want to place the little shelves and clips on the backboard and it can easily be changed. The robotic arm comes attached to the desk and rotates, bends, and grips. It's very realistic and you could easily position pieces in the clamp to make it look like Luciana is building. Under the the surface of the desk is storage space! While you cannot fit all of the MEGA CONSTRUX pieces in there it does hold all of the other accessories nicely. The desk comes with a measuring tape that actually pulls out (Like WW Kendall's), a screwdriver featuring a clip so Luciana can hold it, and a clump of screws that can be placed in the grip of the arm or one of the bins. 

The safety goggles are clear blue plastic with grey elastic and fit easily over Luciana's face. The apron is white and printed with a purple orbit graphic. It velcros at the waist and neck and has two good utility pockets. The graph papers are merely single sheets of plain graph paper, the other three papers are lists and blueprints 'drawn' by Luciana. The sheet of included stickers all feature STEM and Luciana themes. I did not and do not plan on using any of these but they are a cute way to further decorate her desk. 

The underside of the top shelf has two LED lights that can be powered up by pressing a button on the top side of the shelf. The light stays on for around 60-ish seconds and lights up the work space well. To decorate the shelf are a solar system model made of silver, red, yellow, and blue plastic with rings that really spin and a pretend terraium. These items are made of a heavy plastic and function well. I was impressed at how easily the solar system model spins.

Lastly the set includes two MEGA CONSTRUX projects. The pieces come in several bags and included is a booklet that takes you step by step through each build. The satellite and rover are great projects to tie in with Luciana and it's easy to pretend that they were items she built at space camp. Each finished project took around a half hour to construct and the directions were very easy to follow. The rover rolls and has a adjustable clamp.

Overall this set is made of heavy plastic and from my impressions will last under heavy play. The variety of features, included items, and the collaboration with MEGA CONSTRUX (and the fact that in the AG app you can unlock more projects to build with them) makes this a set that I think is not only worth the $100 price tag but presents a multitude of ways it can be played with or displayed. Overall grade A+.