Keva Catapult

KEVA Catapult

 

My nine year old son and I were very excited when we received the catapult to review. However he was so excited he jumped the gun and began building it without me. The Catapult definitely takes parental supervision and involvement with younger children and will take you a few hours to build. The Catapult is suggested for kids seven and up. For older kids who I think would still be interested in building it, parental supervision could probably be at a minimum or none – especially if your child is good at following directions and building.

The Catapult comes with “blueprint” directions which I thought was cute. Along the edge of the directions is a ruler to cut out. It also came with all of the small wood planks, glue, rubber bands and tiny bean bags for launching – almost everything you need to assemble the Catapult. . I would say you should get some spring clamps to hold pieces together as the glue dries.

This is a great indoor project for a long rainy, cold or too hot day. It will take you a few hours to build not only because of the difficulty of following directions but also for necessary drying time. It took me over an hour and I didn’t even finish! I think the toy would be much easier to assemble for children eager to start on their own and for parents who are easily confused when distracted, as I often am, if the company labeled each of the wood pieces with either letters or numbers.

When my son started building the Catapult on his own, he of course didn’t follow directions exactly. Trying to pry and pieces apart to set them properly was a huge chore which only shows the glue that accompanies the toy is great. I could manage to only separate one of the three incorrectly set pieces. I tried assembling the Catapult myself. Then I realized I made a mistake myself. At that point the glue dried and I couldn’t get the pieces apart. So that combined with the pieces my son had glued together incorrectly we gave up on the project. He was very excited about the prospect of playing with it before we screwed the assembly up. So I am sorry I cannot comment on how the toy actually functions. But I do feel confident saying the product would hold up to playing. The glue included with the kit as well as hardware store wood glue holds up pretty good and the wood pieces were solid wood!

KEVA Catapult

Product Manufacturer: Mindware
Website: http://www.mindware.com/p/KEVA-Catapult/48143
MSRP: $24.95 on company website; $22.68 on Amazon
 
Durability 5
Easy-to-follow Instructions 4
Small Pieces/Messy 3
Appealed to Advertised Age 
5
I Would Purchase For My Child Yes
I would Purchase As A Gift  Yes
Overall Rating
4

All ratings on a scale of 1 (low) to 5 (high).

Meet the Reviewer!

Rose Murphy-Hamlet is a former New York litigation attorney. She is now a stay at home mother to two boys 9 years old and 4 years old and a daughter 1 year old. Rose lives in Fairfax with her children and husband but is originally from the Bronx.

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