Academy Leonardo da Vinci Arch Bridge Kit Review

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

Leonardo Da Vinci developed a number of designs that were well before their time. His vision of vertical flight with his spiral helicopter, paddle wheel-powered vessels, and the early armored car may have been laughable in his day, but were the stepping stones for today's MV-22 Osprey, turbine-powered Ticonderoga-class cruisers, and M1 Abrams tank (and their analogs from other nations of course).

Here is the latest release from Academy in the da Vinci series, this time showing off his simple but very strong arch bridge. The kit is molded in wood-colored styrene and presented on three parts trees plus two bases and a storage box for the parts. Unlike many of the other previous releases, this set goes together by friction/gravity alone and uses no glue. You can treat this kit as a puzzle and assemble as many sections of the bridge as you like, and when you're finished, put all of the parts into the storage box for your next play session.

The instructions have you assemble three facets of the bridge in beginner's level, but there are parts for five facets which I assembled here. There is even one extra cross-member should you lose one. The assembly of this puzzle-like kit is rather quick depending on the amount of coffee you've had and whether you're also chewing gum. It doesn't take long to figure out how the notches in the longitudinal logs work and even the planking across the bridge is pre-keyed to go together quickly.

This is a nice-looking model that is a snap (pun intended) to assemble and will be fun for your child to learn a little history or as a nice conversation piece on your desk at work or at home.

This kit is definitely recommended! I really do enjoy assembling and tinkering with Academy's Da Vinci kits!

My sincere thanks to MRC for this review sample!