Comments on Tangle Proteins Building Set

I recently purchased a Tangle Proteins Building Set from Educational Innovations and just put together the first model in the set: the third IgG-binding domain from Streptococcal Protein G.  The pieces in the primary chain were hard to wrestle together. My assembly tactics ranged from dish soap to sandpaper to leather gloves to simple "elbow grease",  and the pieces eventually came together.  The clear lengths of plastic used to make hydrogen bonds should have probably been just a smidge longer.  The directions in the book had issues, too.  It was difficult to tell from the photographs where one structural element ended and the other began.  I have experienced similar difficulties in displaying the seams between LEGO bricks on my Exploring the Nanoworld with LEGO Bricks website (they are also brightly colored plastic pieces).  On the LEGO site, we have had to sometimes color the seams between the bricks with permanent markers to emphasize them.  The  first model also has an error in the instructions: only 12 red helix pieces were given in the list for the primary sequence, yet everywhere else in the instructions 14 red pieces are required.  Despite all these challenges, I think this little protein model is pretty cool when finally assembled. It features an alpha helix and a beta pleated sheet, and this inorganic materials chemist can appreciate the fact that, as others have said, the hydrogen bonds and other secondary interactions between various parts of the primary chain  really direct the structure of the entire molecule.  Two other models are also described, but this inorganic materials chemist would love to eventually see some metal binding sites (e.g. a heme group) added.