MiniLuk and BambinoLuk

I came across this wonderful children game in a booth selling IQ games at Tesco 3 years ago. I was impressed because of the innovative contents. Besides, children can play on their own and checking their own answers. I still remember one of the puzzles showing the top view of a swimmer wearing a cap, and the children are asked to identify the respective side view of the swimmer. That requires quite some imagination from the children. However, the price scared me off. It's at least RM600+. The sales lady told me that this game had more than 30 years history in Germany.

Okay, you may not know what is this Luk and Bambino Luk, I have found a website that demonstrates this. Check out the demonstration and you will understand what I mean

Links to Amazon for MiniLuk (I hope this give you the latest price)


Links to Amazon for BambinoLuk (I hope this give you the latest price)



BambinoLuk (2-4 years old) : Introduction, Demonstration , Samples

MiniLuk (4-8 years old): Introduction, Demonstration , Samples
(note: I tried to purchase from them in mid 2009 but looks like they did not sell outside US)

I think you will be impressed too looking at the Samples and demonstration . I strongly believe that by exposing the children to these games, we are developing their intelligence, in terms of sequencing, imagination and association. You can tell that I am convinced and I would buy, but forking out RM600++ is very painful, especially at a stage that I am not sure my children would like it.

By the way, I am a big fan of Dr Glenn Doman(proposed use of flash cards) and Dr Howard Gardner(proposed Multiple Intelligence concept), I believe that parents should stimulate children to think and to sharpen their brain because brain development happen at early childhood. I had finish reading their books years ago. That's the reason I was convinced quite easily.

It so happened that I had a short trip to Germany in the following month. Although lack of time, within the available 2 hours, I managed to visit a bookstore to find out about this Luk system. Yes, the sales girl was right that it had been popular in German for more than 30 years. I had a hard time to decide what to purchase. Unlike other parts of the world, in Germany, the Luk system has a very wide varieties, and I was selecting from a range of 50-100 books. Each of them is about 5-7Euro. I bought several books and a controller, amounting to RM200 with the kind help from the Germany salesman translating for me. That's 1/3 of the price compared to what I saw.

My son had completed all the exercises of this miniLuk set. I wanted to get more, but I did not have any chance to visit Germany and I could not afford a trip like that. I came across a toy shop in United Square Singapore located at the basement. The official website could be found here. My son had a chance to look at it and tried out before I paid SGD100 for a set of 5 books. I knew in Germany and US, this would be cheaper but considering that we had a chance to try it out, I decided to pay. May be partly because the owner was very friendly and kind. As expected, I found out later that it was sold cheaper, about half price in US. My friend tried to purchase from Amazon, but again, since not offered directly by Amazon, they did not sell outside of US.
( Update 2015 : All the local selling this are out of business)

I also came across a "cheap version", sold in "pasar malam"(night market). The controller looked very similar to the miniLuk system. It was sold at cheaper price, but still at RM160! But the quality had no match to the miniLuk system. Besides, I also suspected that it might be pirated copy. Checking the contents, I found that the "Germany Intelligence" in the game was missing. It looked like a compilation which consists of many different subjects, without a key learning theme. Will be a waste of money if you buy those.

I always admire German engineers for their innovation and good engineering. I believe IQ games like this have a role in this. I value innovation products like this. But please do not get me wrong, I do not believe that IQ games will make a child more "clever" and definitely you cannot create a genius out of these. But the IQ games will make a child more "intelligent" in a way defined by Dr Howard Gardner. But unfortunately, it's not commonly available to us....

Update 2015 :
Some broken links removed.  Also, I counted 7-8 websites copied this post. Well, you can tell that mine is the original as my writing style (with grammatical error) etc.