Estes 2435 3 Bandits Rocket-Building Kit, Beginner Mini-Engine-Powered Flying-Rocket-Model Kit for Ages 10+

Had a great time putting these together, and an even better time with the family launching these! So much fun!

These rockets were a HUGE hit with my grandkids. They assembled SUPER fast and easy. The launches went great! We have launched each rocket multiple times (Thank goodness we thought to buy extra engines) and the rockets are still intact and ready for more fun. We've had 2 Saturday mornings of rocket fun and plan another when the weather permits.

Great, quick, easy to build the starter rockets. Great way to get started and launching within minutes.

The construction was a fun little project with the kids, it does help to have an adult handy because there are subtle points like gluing the shock cord at least 1" inside the nose but this was an easy build. The kids loved the bright colors (4 year old girl: "I WANT PURPLE!") and the white bodies readily accept stickers or Sharpie writing so we decorated them and taught the kids our phone number by putting that on there as well.I ordered some additional engines and we went out one Saturday morning and did 9 launches in just over an hour and the kids loved it. The rockets fell within 50 yards of the launch point, often so close we could catch them as they parachuted down. The rockets are still in good shape and all I need is more engines and we can launch more again! I got to hear "you're the best dad ever" about 20 times, so I guess it was a good purchase :)A fun idea is to give the kids jobs at the launch site: check around for safety and yell "safety - go flight!", have someone man the key and someone the launch button. The kids loved getting involved in all this stuff and I'm going to keep it going. Definitely a better use of the money than one more DVD in the cabinet, I think.

3 pack is a pretty good value. Super easy to put together. I assembled all three in about a half an hour with my 4 yo and 6 yo. They enjoyed doing what they could and seeing the project come together, but they did need help with gluing the fins on and tying on the parachutes. Slightly older kids could probably do the whole thing themselves; all the plastic pieces fit together nicely, so aligning fins and launch lugs is a non-issue. As a side note, some of the smaller decals weren't cut out properly and wouldn't come off the backing, so the kids found that frustrating. We launched them a week or so ago and the kids loved it. Bear in mind these rockets need the smallest size engines Estes makes (half A or whatever they're called). If that is mentioned in the product description I missed it.

fun rockets and easy to build for beginners BUT too thin for the parachute to come out. none of the parachutes deployed properly because they were too stuffed in the rocket. other than that a fun rocket just don't expect a soft landing!

Excellent model kit, great price....considering an Estes star trooper (1 smaller rocket kit) cost me over $7 in the hobby store, and that one came with balsa wood fins. This kit comes with 3 rockets. The rocket kits all come packaged separately with assembled, plastic fin base, solid body tube (no coupler or separated tube) parachute, nose cone and stickers. Great for beginners. Yes, you need A class engines - 1/4 A3-3T they work perfectly. Yes you need a launcher. Most people should know this, but I see some people gave the product a lower rating because they thought they could launch them as is. If you want the "building experience" then this rocket is not for you as you will assemble it in minutes. Still fun though.

I bought this as a gift for a 10-year old and we were both disappointed that we could do nothing with the rockets when we opened the package because this product requires several additional pieces of equipment in order to actually launch the rockets--there was no engine, launch pad, etc. Wish that had been made a bit clearer in the product description instead of calling it a "rocket kit."