Maze Racers, by FoxMind, is a two-player competitive maze-building game for children eight and up. Play begins with both players being given a shallow tray and a number of wooden pieces of various shapes, all of which can be attached magnetically to the tray. They must race to build a challenging maze with a start and finish; once one player finishes theirs, the other only has another 60 seconds to build. After that time is up, the players swap mazes, place marbles at their respective starting locations, and try to be the first one to roll the marble from start to finish and back again! Replayability is high due to the simple set of rules and the nearly infinite number of ways to configure new mazes (which develops spatial reasoning and encourages creativity). Maze Racer takes a simple set of components and turns it into a fast-paced competition that tests both design and critical thinking abilities.

Engineering thinking and design practices the gift encourages children to do or learn about: Define a problem, make observations, plan a solution, analyze and redesign the solution

Engineering text or context explicitly provided by the gift: NA

Additional practices and skills needed by engineers that were addressed by the gift:

Spatial reasoning skills, creative thinking, design, problem solving

Overall Ratings:

• Children Reviews
  • Rating: 3.75 out of 5.0
  • Feedback:
    • “I like that it’s complicated.”
• Parents Reviews
  • Rating: 4.67 out of 5.0
  • Feedback:
    • ?“The toy uses lots of different types of thinking.”
• Engineering & STEM Experts Reviews
  • Rating:  4.0 out of 5.0
  • Feedback:
    • “Encourages creative thinking and offers the possibility of more than one solution.”