Lego Star Wars Boost Droid Commander 75253 Fun Coding Stem Set with R2-D2 New

[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] I was a little hesitant with this because of the potential difficulty involved with the motors and the app (which we hadn't had experience with on other LEGO builds), but I am so happy we got this for my son. He's 7 and has a lot of LEGO experience and is a very fast builder, so I thought this would challenge him...and it did. The build time wasn't too long. He worked on in for a couple hours and we figured out the whole app. In the end he really enjoyed it and loves playing with it. It's almost like a remote control toy. Well done LEGO for taking it to the next level with the added technology.

When I saw this set released I was very excited. I enjoy making Lego with my 6 year old son and we both enjoy Star Wars, so this was a no-brainer purchase. We had already enjoyed the original Boost set and this contributed to being confident the play experience would be positive (having ironed out our wrinkles of bluetooth connectivity experience with that set). I think the droids are very well realised. R2D2 and Gonk have real personality and are good representations of the screen versions (well, apart from Gonk's arms of course!). The Mouse is a sort of bonus addition i'd say, but does demonstrate a useful way to use the move hub in car type builds that kids may appreciate when making their own motorised constructions using the hub. I think three very well realised controllable robots for the price makes it one of the better value Lego sets available. Navigating the app and becoming familiar with the icons and their purpose is a bit convoluted. For owners who may find progressing through the tasks a bit tedious, do stick with it, there is a novel pay off about 3/4 of the way through, where R2 is slightly dismantled, but I don't want to spoil the surprise! This build could have been trailed in ads and packaging to add motivation. I do think the separation between Lego toy division and Lego education hampers the accessibility of the functionality of what the Boost system is capable of, when after all it is more capable than Lego Wedo 2. However the programming of the latter is presented in a much more structured way. This set does serve to allow good playability to be achieved but it could achieve more educationally with just a little more thought and structure to the app. The original Boost could be similarly criticised, so it's slightly disappointing this is still the case with a set released 18 months later. My suggestions for improvement would be to address this lack with an app update providing opportunity for semi complete models and prompts to the child to improve or add to the model, in the way the original R2D2 set 9748 did. In addition, i'm sure i'm not alone in wanting additional bag 12s to be available for order (as long as the price was reasonable). Having more than one droid built and usable, including their accessory would be a boon. (Owners of both 17101 and this set would of course be able to have two droids operational. Making these interact through the app would be an incredible extension) Set 17101 was 'updated' a few months later by the possibility to combine with an arctic truck and a Ninjago dragon, i'm hopeful, but not optimistic that such additional features will be offered for this set. In conclusion, a very good set, but with perhaps never to be realised potential to be great!