Review of the new JMBricklayer 70154 Mechanical Parrot Building Set

 


Hello, hello, brick fans!

It's May 2024 and we are back with another review.  And it's a time for a look  at one of the latest JMBricklayer sets!   

If you don't already know, JMBricklayer stands for Joy Makes Brilliance, an up and coming Lego compatible building block distributor and manufacturer.  They have authorization from the manufacturers of building block sets for their global online distribution, with channels on Amazon US, CA, UK, DE, including their official worldwide online store at JMBricklayer.com.



Also starting in the month of May, check out JMBricklayer's new exclusive event - Brick It Happen on Facebook, where you can submit your ideas (text/image/video/sketch/etc) and get a chance to make it happen with real bricks!   Ok, let's get into the review:

Today's Set Review


So the Mechanical Parrot 70154 set is another in JMBricklayer's series of half mechanized animals which is part of their Fantastic Ideas theme.   Basically, the building block sets are constructed so that half of the display looks like a real animal and the other side is a mechanical or robot like version of the creature.  Usually the mechanized side are adorned with shiny parts and gears and sometimes come with a unique lighting effect which is the case with the mechanical parrot.

  • Brand: JMBricklayer
  • Set and Number: Mechanical Parrot 70154
  • Theme: Fantastic Ideas
  • Piece Count: 688+ pieces
  • Age Rating: 14+
  • Numbered Bags: No
  • Stickers: No
  • Printed Parts: No
  • Minifigures: No
  • Lighting Effect: Yes
  • Extra pieces: A ton!


More Details and Special Pricing from JMBricklayer



Note: The Amazon US store discount codes are valid from May 15th to May 21st, so don’t miss out!

StorePriceDiscount CodeDiscount
Amazon US$24.99 E52MA2SZ15%
JMB Site
(for worldwide buyers)		$24.99 JMBVIP15%15%
For Amazon US,  the coupon code JMBHAR15 for US Amazon applies only to the Mechanical Parrot 70154  and is valid for one month, offering a 15% discount. 



Unboxing


Upon opening the sturdy box, you will find a glossy instruction booklet and two large parts  bags numbered 0 and 1.  


These are the parts from numbered bag Zero.

And these are the parts from numbered bag One.  With some extra pieces that are separate.  A closer inspection of the bagged pieces reveals a lot of small 1x1 type parts, which explains the high piece count of over 688 pieces.

The bags of parts don't correspond to anything in the manual, so unfortunately, this is a case where you have to open all the bags and sort out the pieces to look for the matching ones required in the instructions.  For me, it helped to sort the parts by colour, but do what feels best for you.   I found a bonus brick separator amongst the parts bag, but never had to use it.  All of the parts are Lego compatible by the way.

I also found this brick which looks like a little battery pack.  We will look at how it's used later.

About the instruction booklet, there are approximately 37 pages with 140 steps in total.  Here's a peek at the instructions.

I noticed that there are a lot of different coloured bricks used in this set, so you will have to pay special attention when choosing the right parts.  See the picture above for an example.  We are on step 23.

There's a good assortment of gold and silver chromed parts which will be used on the mechanical side of the parrot.

Step 36.  We are building the bird's body and this is where we will embed the battery box.  

As you build the parrot, you will connect a transparent flexible tube to the battery box and loop it around.  With the legs constructed, the parrot can stand on it's own because of the technic pegs.

Step 82.  The mechanical side of the parrot is starting to take shape with lots of shiny bits added.

Step 101.  Working on the the animal side of the parrot.  Wow, I really like the colour combination of the the turquoise and yellow pieces together.

Step 119: We added the gear knob part which turns the light on inside the battery box.  The light then illuminates the flexible tube giving off a vibrant neon green colour.   We also attached the transparent wings as well.


Steps 127 through 139 builds the wooden perch for the parrot.  The technic pins from the legs will go into the two circular slots in the perch.


Those mechanical claws are awesome looking.

Here's a close up look at the mechanics of the robot parrot.

Here's the completed parrot, showing it's natural side.  One annoying bit is the fact that I couldn't make the wing come closer to the body.  If I tried to force the wing downward, it would inevitably pop off.

And here's the mechanical side.

Rear view.


And front view.

I turned off the room lights so you can see the lighting effect of the mechanical parrot.  I think a great enhancement would be to somehow illuminate the eye of the mechanical parrot as well.  This is a unique effect not found in standard Lego sets.

Here is the crazy amount of parts that were left over from building the parrot!  I hope I didn't miss anything, lol.   You can definitely use these pieces with your other Lego and non Lego building sets.

Final Thoughts


This was a fun little set that took me a good part of an afternoon to build.   I think it might have even gone a bit faster if the build was broken down into sections and used more than 0 and 1 to number the bags.  This might take some users new to Lego style bricks to get used to.    Overall part quality and clutch was decent, although I have no idea why there were so many extra pieces. 

The mechanical side neon light tube was easy to install and operated with knob.   Apparently you can adjust the three tail feathers which I only found out about later.  One issue I had was I could only install the wings in an upright position.   Trying to lower the wing caused the ball joint to pop out for me.

I really liked how the bird side of the parrot turned out.  It got me thinking about how to improve this set.  I think for these types of half animal, half mecha sets, the designer/manufacturer should also include the requisite pieces to build the entire animal in it's natural form.  With that you could buy one set and build it two different ways.

While I do like the uniqueness of the mechanical robot parts, I think just building the parrot as a model of a bird would make a beautiful display.  And then they could do a whole series of different birds which I would definitely enjoy.

The mechanical parrot displays very nicely and  for the preceding reasons, I will give it a score of 4.1 out of 5.

If you love these half animal, half mecha style sets, please check out some of my other JMBricklayer reviews below:








More about the JMBricklayer brand


You will find that all JMBricklayer sets are tax free and always shipped in sturdy premium boxes fulfilled quickly by Amazon, directly from their US, CA, UK & DE warehouses. They offer free replacements for missing or broken parts. Their Trustpilot page (https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.jmbricklayer.com) has a solid 4.5+ rating.

Dont forget to check out the JMBricklayer Facebook and Instagram pages to participate in their promotions and monthly contests where you can win free sets and get exclusive discount codes up to 60% off.