The common negative complaint on this item is that the pieces do not stay connected. On our set 3 of the sticks did not fit snugly when first assembled. After just 3 different projects nearly half of the sticks fit poorly. The problem with younger children is that they tend to knock the sticks out easily during normal play. Once the end of a stick is exposed it becomes potentially a safety hazard to the child especially if the sheet covering the "fort" makes the interior dark and the child cannot see the exposed stick end. The ability of children under 7 to assemble their own "forts" is questionable due to the inconsistent amount of pressure required to connect the sticks to the nodes. In addition, it is too easy to create frame structures that are unstable and therefore likely to fall apart.

My kids (6 and 3) received this as a Christmas gift and they love it! We have already built all the listed ideas and are making up new ones! It requires adults to put them together, but once together the kids have hours of fun in the fort. Some people have complained about them not fitting together correctly, but if you have the arrows on the balls all pointed straight up, you shouldn't have trouble. Also their were complaints about it falling apart, but we haven't found this to be the case. Just keeping an eye out for this to go on sale, so we can get another set and build bigger and more elaborate forts.

Our kids were given Crazy Forts as a gift last year and we were so excited to get started. Unfortunately, every single time we built a section, we had to go back and fix a previous section and so on. it just kept falling apart and was quite frustrating and disappointing for our kids (age 3 and 6). It's a great idea, but I think they need to make sure the parts actually stay together!

My grandkids had this and the ball and stick structures aren't strong enough to hold anything more than the lightest fabric/sheet. You're better off to use good sturdy chairs to build a fort.