Clone Brick Review: Sluban Middle School with School bus

[paanjang16]

"Let's go to school! Ferry the school children to school in the school bus! Play basketball on the outdoor court! Then learn about road safety and the ABCs!"

Manufacturer: Sluban

Set no: M38-B0333

No. of piecs : 486

Price: RM 99.90

***WARNING!! THE FOLLOWING REVIEW WILL CAUSE SEVERE RAGE AMONG LEGO PURIST. VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED***

I was browsing through Berjaya Times Square in Kuala Lumpur when I came across this particular set. This is a place well known for knock-offs & other types toys. One shop in particular had this huge array of Sluban sets ranging from transportation, miltary to ancient far east sets. The reason this set caught my eye beside the fact it looks like a certain Lego City set is because it fills what many in the Lego community has demanded from Lego-a school. For years we haven't had a Lego school where we can sent our Lego kids and out of the blue this clone brick company though of this and came out with this set. But will it be good enough that the Lego City parents will sent their kids to this school or Lego kids are better off home schooled as before?

The box

The front of the box shows the school with all the kids, teacher & bus driver with the school bus. I got no idea what the Chinese charactors say

The back shows the variety of play features and some marketing talk on how it improves your child's mental development

Zooming into the play features, you will realized that the kids have only a torso while sitting on the chair! I will explain later in the review on that. Also the picture of the kids boarding the bus looks kind of familier...

Inside the box there is a cardboard tray- something that current Lego sets sadly lack. Photo taken after I have open and assembled the set hence no picture of all the pieces still in the bags.

Dreaded Sticker Sheet

I was expecting this Chines clone brick set to have printed bricks but alas I was dissapointed. I did not stick them because most of the pieces are placed over several bricks. Would be very useful for future MOCs though.

Instruction Manual

The front page is similar to the front page box. No surprises here.

The instruction guides you by showing the bricks to be placed onto the model. New bricks in their original color are placed over the bricks from the previous step which is similar in color to the background. Notice any similar pieces to Lego?

Another step showing the building of the school.

A step showing how the overhead projector is installed onto the floor above. Good to see a set keeping up with the times.

Minifigs

we get 7 minifigs in this set. The variety is very good with 2 different school girls with different haircuts and a school bully. We also get a perky bus driver with a school teacher. The other 2 school boys have a generic haircut and face.

There is no back printing nor double sided head unfortunately.

Are the figures compatible with Lego minifigures and vice versa? From the pciture below the heads and head gear can be interchange with one another. Batman isn't please with the new haristyle.

Legs are little more complicated. While the Lego minifig leg can fit the Sluban figure, the Sluban torso have a curve above the leg area under the arms. Also if the Sluban leg is attached to the Lego minifigure torso, the slight curve will not result of a proper fit. I also got no idea why the short legs of the Sluban figure was designed this way.

The school bus

The school bus is an 8 stud wide bus that can seat up to 9 passengers and 1 driver. I like how the top of the bus has a curve roof and how roomy the bus is.

The frame of the bus are almost similar to that of Lego as well comes with a stop sign on its side (sadly a sticker), wing mirrors and a huge door to enter. The driver has a steering wheel with a center column and gear lever.

Now the bad part, as nice as it looks, the small tires makes it terribly off scale and akward. I would prefer the tires are bigger and more to scale of the bus.

Unlike a certain yellow bus from the pizza corner set, you will have to remove the entire section of roof to place the minifigs inside. There are no easy removal of the roof and the whole top section might break apart when doing so.

Also since the minifigs cannnot sit properly on the sits , this is how most of them travel the majority of the time.

The school

We now proceed to the focal point of this review, the school building. The style of the building os very obviously copied from the Pizza corner building. It is clear that the Sluban set designers is going for a redesign rather than making an entirely new design.

The front door can be opened fully and is flanked on the side by a very lovely flower bed. The 1x1 circular plate looks like a new piece to me. There are also bollards on the left and right of the entrance.

On the side of the building is a fairly simple basketball court. Green 1x6 tiles mark the play area for our little boy there. But where is the ball? Apparently there is no ball included! The ball on the box is somewhat photoshopped into the box art.

As you can see, the roof design isn't as complex as the pizza corner. But I do like the shade of brown and the way Sluban has designed the building overall.

A rear shot of the classrooms. I am assuming that the class on the Ground floor is a computer lab while the one aobe (1st floor) is a normal classroom. The 2nd floor is empty since it is too low for anything. Needless to say, the classroom is well equipped with a blackboard, desks, chairs, teacher's table and even overhead projectors!

After placing the minifigs inside the classroom, you will see a problem with the chairs; the kids with the small legs will either have to stand on them or leave them somewhere else like on the box art. I am wondering if the folks at Lego are not keen to release a school or kindergarden simply because the kid minifig cannot sit down and be forced to stand all the time? I guess I will never know.

Another shot of the school without the minifigures. A big difference between this building and the pizza corner is that the buidling is not modular. The whole school is 1 big piece which can be lifted up.

Leftover pieces

Yes, that's ALOT of leftover pieces! I am wondering if I have misbuild something but after checking I found no misbuild anywhere. Sluban must have added some extra pieces just to be safe.

Conclusion

So how is a copy of a well known Lego City set? I was surprised at the quality of the bricks as it had no sharp edges and color consistancy is good. Clutch power is still a step below Lego but noneteless is able to keep the model in 1 piece and not fall apart.

Design wise there are a few surprises here and there like the overhead projector and overall layout of the school.However during the building of the school bus it becomes apparent why Lego employ skilled people to design and prepare instructions as well as check the models. You see, many times during the build of the bus some pieces are well supported until later when the entire section is completed. Till then, the section is prone to coming apart although the clutch power is good. This is more a design issue than the quality of the bricks. Then there is playbility of the bus due to the lack of easy removal of the roof.

Now the question is, is the school suitable enough for the Lego City kids? The answer is yes! The set is that good if you can overlook the some minor design and playability issues.

[VBBN]

Thanks for that review,

I must say, the only thing that's really somewhat interesting to me is the bus. It's proportions are way out of whack however9that front section and the tires) But hey, at least it's a fairly original design.

The only thing I noticed here, and this is something I wondered the whole review, was this quote;

"Let's go to school! Ferry the school children to school in the school bus! Play basketball on the outdoor court! Then learn about road safety and the ABCs!"

if a kid doesn't know their ABC's yet, I don't think they need to be learning how to drive

[TheWarden]

Thanks for that review,

I must say, the only thing that's really somewhat interesting to me is the bus. It's proportions are way out of whack however9that front section and the tires) But hey, at least it's a fairly original design.

The only thing I noticed here, and this is something I wondered the whole review, was this quote;

if a kid doesn't know their ABC's yet, I don't think they need to be learning how to drive

Ha! I guess they meant "road safety" in the terms of school crossings and cross-walk safety and all that.

Aside from that, it's not a bad set. It has a few nice building details and the bus doesn't look half bad. I do wonder if LEGO would make a "sittable" version of their short legs sometime in the future...

Edited July 8, 2012 by TheWarden

[Bilbo Baggins]

Wow! the minifigs look horrible

[HumanPackMule]

Anyone else notice how the word "middle" was misspelled on the sticker for the bus? As a purist myself I got more of a kick at how pathetic this knock off, rather than rage.

[LEGO Guy Bri]

I just saw this on eBay. I was quite interested in seeing it close up to compare to Lego's version. I didn't notice the misspelled sticker until now; very comical. Apart from everything else looking very unappealing, I have to agree that most of the other stickers look useful

[XimenaPaulina]

Even though this is a cheap clone brand of our beloved LEGO, I actually find this set quite appealing, in the sense that I've never seen this concept (mini-school + school bus) explored by LEGO before and I certainly want to see this as a LEGO set in the near future (more civilian-based buildings/vehicles in LEGO CITY is always welcome). The school is nicely done, as well as the bus, though I'm pretty sure TLG would do an even better job if ever they decide to do a similar set.

[The Blue Brick]

I also just saw this set on Ebay and was quite interested. I really like the concept of the school and colors they chose. The figures are horrible, but everything else looks fine to me. I'm actually thinking about buying this set the next time I see it online for real cheap.