Angry Birds GO! Telepods Pig Rock Raceway Set Review and Giveaway

When Angry Birds GO! Telepods launched back in the Fall, some of my students asked me if I would be receiving them for review, because they’d like to test them out. Around the same time I was contacted by Hasbro to review a set  in exchange for a free review, so I promised my students that the Friday before our holiday vacation I’d bring them in, if they worked hard for the following month. We had fun using the Angry Birds GO! Telepods Pig Rock Raceway Set. Angry Birds toys are the current rage right now and a huge source of motivation for young children given their app integration and collectibility features.

The Angry Birds GO! Telepods are small toy karts featuring different Angry Birds characters that can be teleported into the iPod/Android apps. Therefore, children can teleport their actual toy into the app by placing it over the camera sensor on the device, so they can play as the character featured within the game. Aside from the small toys, there are playsets, like the Pig Rock Raceway Set, that also have more traditional living room play.

Before our session, I downloaded the free app, Angry Birds Go! from Rovio Entertainment on my iPad. However, using the app is not a requirement for this toy. 3 students and I worked together to assemble the Pig Rock Raceway Set. It only took 5-10 minutes to assemble, and the directions were fairly simple to follow, using the front of the packaging mainly as our guide. You will need about 3 1/2 feet of table or floor space (at least 40 inches)  to use the game, and it does take up a fair amount of room. Keep the box or use a storage container, all of the pieces store back inside when game play is finished, but it’s to long to easily store when it’s not in use in its fully assembled position.

When using the Pig Rock Raceway set,  the 2 players pick a racing kart. They put their karts at the bottom of the ramp, then on the count of 3 push the red button at the same time, which launches their karts down the track to see who the winner is. There are small pigs that can be placed in various places along the way that karts may knock the off as well. With 3 students we had a competition, a best of 3 series, and that determined in what order the students could take 1 turn using their character within the iPad app.

I did have some difficulty teleporting the karts into the app and it required a bit of trial and error. The app also worked best on my iPhone and for some reason kept crashing on the iPad. The game was certainly more fun with multiple children playing at the same time and could be a fun game to use at an Angry Birds themed birthday party because once it’s assembled it’s pretty easy to use. The game is recommended for kids ages 5 and up due to small pieces, but it’s simple enough for a younger child to play with supervision. The set retails for $29.99.

Want to win your own set? Enter the Rafflecopter giveaway below by January 2nd, 2014.a Rafflecopter giveaway

For more information on this toy and other Angry Birds Go! Sets, visit Hasbro.com.