The Ultimate Marble Run!

This is like a mash up of the traditional marble run and a thrilling rollercoaster... but built by your kids!

We were kindly gifted this GraviTrax Starter Set, GraviTrax Expansion Pack Magnetic Cannon, and GraviTrax Expansion Pack Hammer by Ravensburger for purpose of review. All opinions and images are our own and completely genuine. This post contains affiliate links.

We love encouraging STEM play but strangely don't own a marble run of any kind. My kids always love them when we see them in children's museums and toy stores, I guess I'd just never really found one that I felt was robust enough. Well the GraviTrax is certainly robust, and to be honest, it's also pretty darn cool!

You start off with a strong foundation upon which you build your marble run. The parts are high quality and easily slot into the base, and each other.

It is recommended for 8 and up, but my 5 year old was able to use the materials confidently because they are well-made and the way they fit together is logical. You get 122 pieces in the starter set, a mixture of base pieces, level pieces, runners, and a few speciality pieces. Straight away my son got to work, experimenting how to fit the pieces together. He was constantly testing out his run with a ball to check the flow.

I was impressed with how open-ended this STEM product is. There are many different types of pieces which gave my son the freedom to make different tracks each time. The magnetic cannon and hammer added such a fun challenge.

It was so nice as a parent to see him independently engineering his track and then watching as he demonstrated to baby sis how it all worked.

Baby sis had a blast testing out each of the tracks big bro made! A great fine motor skill activity for her, as well as exposure to STEM learning at a young age.

We are super lucky to be able to test out some of the top STEM toys on the market and we are so grateful for that. I always feel the strongest indicator of a quality toy is whether my kids independently return to the toy for more play the next day- are they motivated to engage more, are they able to play independently with it, do they have the desire to find out more ways to learn with it. Well sure enough, big bro woke up the following morning at 7am and headed straight for the box! Before anyone else was up, he had built a really impressive marble track using some new pieces. When I asked him about it he said he had tried lots of different tracks but this one was best because it kept the marble moving fast- yes, yes, yes! STEM learning at it's finest!!

So thank you Ravensburger for creating the marble run of all marble runs! This really is an innovative product, with a strong sense of engineering and scientific learning. I know that it will continue to challenge my son as he grows older, and I'm sure baby sis will get more and more involved too.