For a holiday fun event this year our team organized a virtual build event. Each participant got to pick their own wooden puzzle to build. I chose the Robotime Rolife Vintage Camera wooden puzzle kit and really enjoyed building it.

I love these puzzle things. I have done two already, the Rokr Video Projector that actually plays a short film loop and a UGears Puzzle box that has a secret locking mechanism and gears that turn as you open the lid.

This kit is much simpler than the other two I’ve done before, but had some challenges. These kits are made from thin sheets of plywood that are laser cut to make the pieces. To assemble them, you carefully punch out the pieces from the sheets, sand the edge if needed, then slide the pieces together. The kits that were sent to us included tweezers, needle nose pliers, paints and brushes, and super glue, but I didn’t need any of those. Simply applying gentle pressure was enough to punch out the pieces. I did sand a few edges where the small attachments splintered off, but that was just cosmetic. Some other people in the party did have pieces that broke (which is why the super glue was supplied) but aside from a cracking sound as I assembled one of the legs I didn’t have any breakages. I guess technically I did have two parts where the plywood layers separated and split, but they were very small and I just put them on the inside of the build.

As mentioned, this is a simpler set. There aren’t any moving parts if you don’t count that the tripod can twist around. The model is designed with an open top so it can be used as a pencil holder or to collect small knick knacks. The hardest piece to assemble was putting the angled pieces from the front against the larger backing piece (the one that says Robotime in the picture) as there were about 10 bits to slide in at once to complete the step. If you do this set, watch out for piece C12. 🙂

I’d recommend this set. Amazon listing but you can find these on AliExpress as well. It took me about an hour and a half to build, but that was with chatting in the video conference party. This looks good on my desk, and fits with the rest of my collection. As I now work with security cameras, this was very on-theme for a work party.