Review: 10244 Fairground Mixer
Posted by rocao,
10244 Fairground Mixer is the latest installment in the LEGO Creator Expert theme. For the uninitiated, the sets in the Creator Expert theme are intended for advanced builders due to their high piece counts and use of sophisticated building techniques.
While the Fairground Mixer does possess those characteristics, it's interesting to note that it doesn't fit into any of the logical categories of the past few years: modular buildings, landmark sculptures, vehicle sculptures, and Winter Village. Instead, its lineage can be traced to 10196 Grand Carousel released in 2009 and 4957 Ferris Wheel from 2007. However, whereas those were stationary theme park rides, the Fairground Mixer is transportable. If I were a betting man (and I am!), I'd wager that this is the first in a series of traveling carnival structures.
The Fairground Mixer has an age rating of 16+. I usually find the LEGO age recommendations conservative. The complexity is similar to that of other 16+ rated sets, so those can be used as points of reference.
The suggested retail price by region is $149.99, £119.99, €129.99. I'm in the USA, so $149.99 is the relevant figure for me, and it passes my "eye test" as being a set that justifiably commands that price tag. Analyzing it further, at the time of this review the Bricklink part-out value (the cost of the pieces if purchased individually on Bricklink) is $319.80. Although nearly all sets have a higher part-out value than their retail price (which explains how those wonderful Bricklink sellers can continue to painstakingly do the work that they do), the 2x coefficient for the Fairground Mixer's value is higher than average.
Truth be told, the Grand Carousel is one of my all-time favorite models, so I'd venture to buy this with the mere hope that it's half as good. But since the price holds up to rudimentary scrutiny, my foregone conclusion to purchase it allows me to feel less like a hopeless slave to LEGO (in this instance, anyway).
If you're unlike me and actually have the benefit of free will, you still may be deciding if or how soon this set needs to join your collection. Let's seek to answer those questions in this in-depth review, shall we?
Packaging
The front of the box presents a single image of the model fully deployed as the Fairground Mixer ride and Midway booths, with the trucks parked behind. It's colorful, cheerful, and bustling with activity, which is the correct tone for the set. As is customary of Creator Expert sets, the parts inventory adorns the top side of the box. I personally don't ever recall using it as a reference, but I appreciate the consistency and the message TLG conveys by highlighting the elements and not just the finished model. Of course, the model and its many features are still presented on the back of the box with aplomb: glow in the dark pieces, triple-wheel movement, power function compatibility, and transformation from truck to ride.
All this feeds into the analysis of what is really important when it comes to boxes: A) would I study every last detail of the box for hours if I was a child and B) would everyone in the room acknowledge how awesome I am if I gave this as a gift? The answer is 'yes' and 'yes'.
The instructions consist of three booklets enclosed with protective cardboard as we've come to expect on sets of this price and size. Book 1 is peculiarly smaller than Books 2 and 3, which are the standard, nearly-A4 size. I don't store my manuals in sleeved binders, but in the parallel universe where I do, my parallel self is annoyed by the smaller book. There are 213 total pages of instructions (not counting the shameless advertising on the backs) and the steps regularly involve adding 10+ pieces.
The bags are numbered "1", "2", and "3" to correspond to one of the three booklets. The number of elements distributed across each of the three booklets appears roughly even. The pieces are interspersed across all the bags, i.e. there are minifigure parts in each of the "1" bags. I don't know if this is an unintentional result of the packaging process or a deliberate effort to combat theft of specific elements. Here are indulgent photos of the bags so I can justifiably call this an in-depth review.
As an aside, I happened to be in the midst of building 70010 Lion Chi Temple with my daughter at the time of this review. The Lion Chi Temple is recommended for ages 8-14. It has half as many pieces as the Fairground Mixer yet has nine numbered bags. I know that many factors go into determining the complexity of a build, but increasing the effort required to locate pieces and obfuscating the instructions seem like a contrived method to making a build more advanced. I would greatly prefer if the complexity was derived simply from the building techniques.
Pieces
The Fairground Mixer is officially comprised of 1746 pieces, though there may be as many as 40 extra pieces included. There are approximately 450 distinct element types, four of which are unique to this set: glow-in-the-dark 1x1 round tile, white 18mm wheel, pearl gold radar dish, and a threw-up-in-my-mouth-a-little printed minifig head. A dozen elements are quite rare. Rather than listing or photographing them all, I'll refer you instead to the inventory listing at http://brickset.com/inventories/10244-1 where you can extract a bunch of useful information about the inventory.
If you salivate for minifigures like TLG seems to think we all do, you'll be happy to know there are 12 minifigures in this set. I think minifigures have become too much a point of focus in recent years, but including a lot with the Mixer makes sense.
There's a small sticker sheet with 16 stickers. The largest image is the marquee for the Mixer truck and since it spans two pieces, it thankfully was produced as two stickers. Who am I kidding? I don't apply stickers, anyway.
The Build
The build is separated into the following three phases: (1) minifigures, midway booths, transport for booths, (2) truck and trailer for the Fairground Mixer, (3) Fairground Mixer ride and fence.
Book 1: Minifigures, Midway booths, Transport for booths (40 min. build time)
Starting the build with the smaller components is a clever way to minimize the time to value. If you don't know what I mean by TTV, then you're probably fortunate to be in a place in life where you needn't know; let me know how the roses smell. For the rest of us familiar with the term, there's a fair chance that you're like me and have little kiddos hanging on your arms, and it's a godsend Jamie-send (same thing?) to quickly have the minifigures built.
For this reason, I also advocate skipping forward to the building of the strongman game, dunk tank, and ticket booth, and leave the truck for the end.
The strongman game is the standout of this trio. It's a clear representation and I liked the simple and effective striking mechanism. Believe it or not, there's a learning curve in being able to properly strike it. I second-guessed that I built it properly when I saw how effortlessly Jamie struck his in the designer video. Perhaps it was just clever video-editing, but nonetheless, it motivated me to spend five minutes to perfect my technique.
While the dunk tank achieves the look and the dunking mechanism works, both aspects left something more to be desired. The same was true of the ticket booth; even though real life ones would never be considered spacious, I found this LEGO version too small. If my suspicion is correct that Fairground does indeed become a series, I would hope that further additions to the Midway are more substantial.
The Midway truck is a workmanlike build, and its design is reminiscent of the $20 City vehicles of the past couple years. I didn't care for the lattice plate over the grill as it made the truck look juniorized. The saving grace for the truck was the clever way in which it stows away the strongman game. However, that isn't shown until the final steps of the third booklet so I didn't fully appreciate it until later.
Book 2: Truck and trailer for the Fairground Mixer (50 min. build time)
One of the Creator Expert design philosophies is to brick-build objects rather than use specialized elements. An example of this would be the fire engine ladder from 10197 Fire Brigade eschewing the large ladder element in favor of two 1x8 tiles for the frame and sword shafts for rungs.
It isn't until step 20 of this second booklet that we encounter this brick-built design approach for the first time. In that step, we use four pieces to build each door for the truck cabin. Unfortunately, I think the application falls flat; a standard door element looks better than this alternative which lacks handles, is disproportionately thick, and has exposed hinges.
The completed truck is a reasonable representation of trucks from a well-known manufacturer (who shall remain nameless; contact Huw for advertising opportunities). Unlike the real world trucks though, the model looks more clumsy than it does stout. Idiosyncrasies such as the heavily recessed windshield wipers, oversized grill, and the previously mentioned doors detract from the accuracy.
It's probably the case that I am unfairly judging Jamie, the lead designer, against his past successes. Perhaps it's not realistic to expect to be wowed by each and every one of his designs. I start to think maybe the subject matter at hand just doesn't allow for much creativity. And then everything changes...
Although the build of the trailer starts inconspicuously with the frame, the first Technic gear and axle are soon in place.
From that point forward, the build came to life. I became fully engaged in simultaneously discovering the purpose of each placed brick and guessing what comes next. This experience is what I enjoy most when building from instructions: the feeling that the designers are telling a story, showing me what's possible with LEGO, and flexing their creative muscle. The finished trailer forms the rotational foundation for the ride.
Book 3: Fence and Fairground Mixer (60 min. build time)
There's not much to mention about the fence, as I consider it a necessary evil to achieve realism. It's repetitive, but luckily it's built in about five minutes.
The remainder of the build is an absolute joy and very much lives up to the Creator Expert branding for its ingenuity. The three-spoke design utilizes hinge plates as a hub, allowing it to collapse and expand.
Clips lock it in a precise and sturdy manner. The arms of the ride provide the seat rotation simply and effectively.
Although the building of the seats requires repetition, I didn't find it laborious; perhaps I took solace in knowing the minifigs would be losing their lunch in short order. Those good at arithmetic will notice the seating capacity of the ride is 12. Thus every included figure can ride simultaneously, provided the ride operator can set it to auto-pilot and the children, whom lack the ability to sit, are allowed to stand.
Two-thirds through the booklet, the Mixer is ready and we're encouraged to give it a whirl. It spins wonderfully. I'm not sure it was intentional, but the length of the axle and the weight resistance on the gears gives the motion a slight ricketiness that I thought was perfect given the fact it's a traveling ride, which are notorious for being nervously unstable.
I found the execution of Technic elements across the entire model perfect. The construction was clear and precise, which is not always the case with Technic models. Because of this, I think the Fairground Mixer serves as a great introduction for builders with no Technic experience, and I wouldn't be surprised if it turns more people on to the theme.
The remainder of the booklet shows how to collapse the model and load it on the trucks for transport and also how to easily add Power Functions to motorize the ride rather than manually crank it. Discovering the way in which the former is achieved goes far towards redeeming how bland I found the trucks to be.
If you haven't already, I recommend taking a look at the designer video to see both the spinning action and the disassembly:
Conclusion
Because of its pedigree, I was very excited when the Fairground Mixer was unveiled. With that excitement came lofty expectations, and I'm happy to report I wasn't disappointed.
I felt that the Midway booths and trucks could have been executed better. There weren't many advanced building techniques or pieces used in novel ways. Despite this, the heart of the set - the Fairground Mixer - was superb. The ingenuity and simplicity of the rotational mechanism made up for the other shortcomings.
For most of us who are cost-constrained and for all of us who are time-constrained, I would recommend placing the Fairground Mixer at or near the top of the list of current LEGO offerings. The only reason not to would be if you intend to purchase other sets that have been available for a year or more and are in danger of being retired.
For those whom I've managed to convince to purchase straight away, 40108 Balloon Cart is a perfect companion for the set and it's currently still being offered for free from shop.LEGO.com with a qualifying purchase (if you're lucky enough to live in a region that offers it).
Please use these links to place your order: UK | Germany | France | USA | Canada. If you are redirected to the shop home page, log in to your VIP account and try again.
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22 comments on this article
This is easily the best review I've read on this site! Excellent work!
I think part of a sentence is missing here: "It's interesting to note that " -- and then nothing.
^^ So you've only read one review on this site, huh?
^ Thanks, corrected.
Great review ! i've got it but not yet built... but now i'm very impatient to start.
This set is in my top 3 of the year with the Benny's spaceship 70816 and the Parisian restaurant 10243 !
What a fantastic year for the LEGO fans but not for my bank account :-)
A Summer series "travelling carnival" ongoing theme would be the perfect compliment to the existing "Winter Village" theme. It doesn't saturate the market, and is gives a perfect spread of a major release to look forward to. Insert a new modular building release in the Spring and Autumn period and that would be lovely.
Please LEGO, take even more of my money!
Terrific review...I appreciated the interesting details (like the parts value), the criticism where it was needed, and the overall wit and humor.
Unless this one goes on sale at some point, I don't think I'll be purchasing it. I've always wanted more LEGO carnival rides, but it feels like too much of the focus was on making sure it could fit on a truck. I'm sure a lot of people like the truck and transforming feature, but I'd rather just have a nicely detailed ride like the Grand Carousel was. This seems a little closer to City than Creator.
Sir Brickalot's statement seconded. Great review.
Another small correction required, subtitle "The Buildb".
I think the review was great, but I wanted to see how the truck stored the dunk tank and the strongman thing. More picture would have been great.
Really long and detailed review. Nice work! It could use a couple more pictures, though. How does the strongman thing even attach to the truck?
I'm getting Benny's Spaceship + Ghostbusters instead. This one will be available for a much longer time than either. This is really cool, though.
Planning to get mine within a few days!
This review is brilliant. However, I think that the truck is not the only component with design flaws here.
1) When transported both the mixer trailer and Midway truck looks out of proportion. They are way too high even for a special transport.
2) The same goes for the balloon cart. With legos you can take some liberties, but a cart and gas tanks as high as a minifig are just too big.
Overall I've been satisfied and I've even got the suggested power functions, but I think these flaws are not insignificant.
Oh, Lego, why make a masterpiece of a set only to make it cost more than I have!!! :(
Very nice review, it's interesting you noted the lattice pieces used on the front of the semi-trucks. I immediately recalled LEGO's usage of that piece on Town sets from the early '90s (i.e. 6346-Shuttle Launching Crew).
I find it kind of strange how on one hand, some people think recent sets have too much emphasis on minifigures, and on the other hand, others feel like recent sets don't have enough minifigures — like 70404, which has just seven minifigures, and one horse, far fewer than older sets like 6080 6085, 6086, and 6090. I feel like you see this complaint most often in themes like Castle and Pirates or licensed themes like Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings which are popular with "army builders", of course — I rarely see people complain about Ninjago or Legends of Chima sets not having enough minifigures for their size.
Likewise, your complaint about how much of the building challenge comes from looking for pieces and deciphering the instructions seems directly at odds with some AFOLs who hate the idea of numbered bags to begin with and think they're a way of "dumbing sets down" for younger kids, much like how some recent sets will only involve attaching a few pieces per step. I guess it goes to show how some people get so used to these sorts of "challenges" that they don't stop to think how even other adults might get frustrated by them.
Good review, but I wish it went into more depth about the way all the attractions pack onto the trucks, or about the smaller attractions in general. Thankfully, there are lots of other reviews that go into more detail about these things.
I got this set when it was announced, and built a few weeks ago.
Pretty much spot on review - especially about the brick built doors. Though I do disagree about the grills on the front - I think they add a bit more realism.
I love how this set treads the fine line between playability and displayability, and how it will be one of those sets you can show to your friends to tell them exactly why Lego is cool.
I also love how it gives you that sense of "what is this for" as you're building it, and then suddenly you work it out and get a wonderful feeling of achievement.
*spoiler!* One of my favourite parts of the big truck is the sleeping area - perfectly realised *spoiler!*
I coudn't imagine how the trangular shape of the arms will hold when it's opened - and how it is built anyway. Now I see, thanks you!
^^^ That's true. Chima sets don't have a ton of minifigs, but they make up for that with the attention to detail and special molds. Ninjago- they have a decent number of figs per set, considering there are only 5 ninja + the Senseis and Nya vs. the evil armies.
I don't mind minimal parts per step, but I do mind when instructions get unreasonably thick because of this. Numbered bags I don't mind because they only matter the first time you build a set.
I really want to love this set, to the point that I went out of my way to get the balloon set, but Modok expressed my view exactly. For now, I am holding off on this until I see if they put out a second set. A second set might be enough to make me like this set better. I think, though, I would have preferred a straight amusement park as opposed to a traveling carnival.
^ yes. if this is going to be a series, a fixed park would be so much better than a travelling carnival, where we can expect 30-40% of the piece count to be put into the "travelling" aspect.
Love how the set looks.
Actually I prefer the idea of the traveling theme since you can break it down and put it away in a smaller platform.
I think this is a fantastic idea for a set. So much playability and the fact that the rides can be quickly assembled and disassembled for travelling.
If had I had any quibbles it would be that I still think that 8 wide trucks are a little out of scale with other Lego City models, though I do acknowledge that the 'Fairground Mixer' is not strictly speaking a City set.
It's an excellent design and clearly had a lot of thought put into it. I for one would definitely love to see more fairground carnival sets. Many of the Collectable MiniFigs would lend themselves well to this theme. Just think of the possibilities, Helter Skelter, dodgems, flying carpet, pirate ship, maybe even a ghost train or Roller coaster. Plus, there could be smaller complimentary sets such as a mini children's roundabout and other smaller stalls including a coconut shy and rifle range.