Ball Balance Puzzle

Ball Balance Puzzle

When I saw Ball Balance Puzzle I thought it might be a good two-handed activity, plus it came with 10 whimsical templates so kids would be encouraged to play over and over. However, this game did not work out for me.

This is a plastic unit which measures 9.5" x 6 3/4" and has a clear plastic cover that cannot be removed. There are six small balls inside that are free to roll, and the unit has six small holes where the balls are supposed to land. There is a rounded hole on each side of the unit for your hands. They would have been OK if you were holding the unit slanted toward you, but it was awkward to put my hands in the holes while holding the unit flat, so I didn't use the holes. There is a slit in the top of the unit where a template card will go. 
 
There are 10 template cards, each with a different, colorful, kid-themed picture. There are six holes in a template card that line up with the six holes in the unit. Slip a card into the unit and roll the balls around trying to get them to land in the holes and stop moving. Play until all the balls are stopped and sitting in the holes.

Template cards

I played with the unit about 10 minutes before I decided to send it back. The holes are shallow, so it is difficult to get a ball to stop, let alone stay. A ball may dip into a hole but almost always just flies right back out.

For some reason, while you are tipping the unit the balls tend to hug the sides of the unit. You can tip the unit quite a bit before the balls will roll away from the sides. It seems to defy gravity, and I looked at it quite a bit, but couldn't figure out why it was happening. The balls aren't sticky, there is nothing magnetic about it, I don't know. When you are trying to keep one or more balls in holes that are already too shallow while tipping to get the other balls in holes, you can't afford to tip the unit too much or the ones already in the holes will roll back out. Which is what happened. So not only was it very difficult to get a ball to stop in a hole, once there it would roll back out once I tipped the unit enough so the balls would move away from the sides. 

I thought it was a good idea, just not executed well.