Engineering Lab

Exactly as described, arrived quickly. Great birthday present for my 8 year old grandson

I gave the kit 5 stars because it is really a neat kit IF it comes with all the pieces. My son if 5 and he loves it. We gave it to him as a Christmas present. When we opened it it was missing the ph chart, the piece of iron, the peppercorn, the string, the popsicle stick and the 2 balloons. I was very very ANNOYED to say the least. Luckily most of those things are laying around my house, but still. One of the reasons I bought this particular kit was because I wouldn't have to go hunting these things down in order to do the experiments with my kids. It's pretty much open up and get to it. And the measuring spoon isn't very sturdy my son broke it the first time he took it out of the box. I wanted to give it less than 5 stars because of all the missing parts, but it is still a fantastic kit to help the kids do some hands on experiments. I love that it comes with the litmus and ph papers because that is definitely not something I have laying around my house. The experiment cards are really nice quality and it appears they will last a long time. All in all it's a hit and my son begs to do the experiments every day.

I bought this kit for my five year old son. Surprisingly, the included items are of a pretty good quality. I was a bit surprised that some needed ingredients were not included and had to be provided by the user, but I guess it is OK. For example, we do not use corn starch at home, so one experiment has to wait until I bought corn starch. It would be nice if the creators of the kit either provided some cornstarch or recommended an alternative, but it is not a big deal for me. Ingredients you need to supply on your own are marked on each experiment card with a little house icon. We are still going through the experiments, but my son loves doing them and is looking forward to using the kit every day. He liked testing with included litmus papers vinegar, milk, and lime juice, and then recording his observations and conclusions in the note book. Certain experiments did not work very well - for example, sticky ice did not work, potentially because in CA it is too warm for the water melted by salt to refreeze. Yeast-generated gas didn't inflating the balloon. We could feel some gas inside the balloon, but it did not rise as shown on the experiment card. Chromatography of color markers didn't work at all. Glue slime came out as cottage cheese. Volcano eruption worked, but I had to double all ingredients. Still, with several tries and help of internet you can make most experiments work. To me the kit is still worth it because of provided supplies and tools. In my view, the kit works on many different levels. It teaches children chemistry, organizing workplace, safety (wearing goggles), accuracy (measuring), motor skills (using pipette, etc.), observing the results and drawing conclusion, reading (instruction cards), and writing (notebook). I would recommend this kit to others, just expect you will have to re-try certain experiments. Alternatively, you can look up simple experiments online.

This is a fun chemistry for kids to do science experiments. Yes, the first 12 of the "50" experiments are introducing the child to the parts of the kits and basic directions, the experiments are great ones for kids to try. My 9 and 11-year old can do the experiments on their own. Here is a list of household supplies that you will need to have on-hand (or buy) to complete all of the experiments, in case you want to get in advance: Salt, cornstarch, water, ice, vinegar, baking soda, pennies, lemon juice or cola, cup, pepper, baking dish, scissors, disposable bowls, piece of bread, sugar, 2 zip-lock bags, 2 pieces of banana, vegetable oil, pancake syrup, markers, rubbing alchol, yellow or red leaves, raisins, soda water, small glass, tall glass, egg, chicken bones, jar, milk, food coloring, cereal bowl, 2 pieces construction paper, 1 liter plastic bottle, measuring cup, tape, newspaper, black paint, paint brush (last 7 items are for #50 experiment). Most supplies are small amounts that are used. Baking soda, vinegar & water are used in many experiments.

51 experiment *cards" is technically true, because their 16 experiments cover 51 cards. We counted actually different 8 chemistry experiments, 5 physics experiments and 2 biology. Many of these amount to letting food products sit on the parents' kitchen counter, for up to a week. Most of the materials are from your own home. The experiments begin on card #13. They actually ask the kid to blow bubbles with a straw into water and count that as an entire experiment. And usually it's all your own materials. For example, on card #50 you use your own construction paper, your own tape, your own plastic liter bottle, your own measuring cup, four, water, newspaper, black paint and paint brush. All your own. The actual cooler experiments are: 1. & 2. mixing baking soda with vinegar (including one with copper pennies, for copper plating of piece of iron) 3. surface tension demos 4. chromatography (that is cool) 5. melting of (your) ice using (your) salt 6. mold (biology) 7. yeast eating banana 8. vinegar dissolving eggshell and softening bones 9. non-newtonian fluid of water and cornstarch, using your supplies 10. exploring pH But they stretch each of these out to several cards. For artwork, I would give it 5 stars. The packaging is amazing and if the idea is get a kid psyched about science, that's good. It is basically all packaging. If you want to just do experiments like this, you can find instructions online and buy a few materials like pH paper and chromatography paper for less money.

This is a wonderful chemistry set. I bought it for my 9 year old granddaughter and she and I had a great time with it. The directions are simple and most of what you need for the experiments are in your kitchen cabinet. Anything else is included in the set. We got through nearly half of the experiments in one sitting and if we'd had more time, we would have done them all. I even learned a bit about chemistry and it was fun for my granddaughter. There were several experiments that I'd like to do again, just for the fun of it. I should say that the company that was supposed to ship this, after ordering it through Amazon, sent me the wrong item. They don't know if someone grabbed the wrong box in the warehouse or if they made a decision to replace it with a different chemistry set because they were out of the Magic School Bus set. Either way, they told me to keep the item (which I will give to a different grandchild) and refunded my money. I had to order the Magic School Bus from another company outside of Amazon.

I am a homeschooling mom of a 7 year old boy who loves science. However, I really did not want to spend $300 on a science curriculum. I had looked up experiments and got books and stuff, but the experiments always ended up needing something that I did not normally keep in the house and I didn't want to keep running to the store and spending all sorts of money on supplies. Then I found this kit. For a great price, it comes with over 50 experiments and all the supplies needed to do them except the most basic kitchen materials (vinegar, baking soda, cornstarch, etc). We are half way through the cards and have yet to come across an experiment that needed something that wasn't included in the kit or I didn't have in my kitchen. Plus, the experiment and results are explained on the back of each card so your child learns the "why" behind the reaction. I will definitely be buying more of these kits.

This product is great. My only wish is that it included a lack of baking soda and food coloring. While both are easy to find at a store, it was a bit disappointment for my son that we couldn’t get to doing several experiments until after a trip to the super market on the weekend. It was a little bit like “batteries not included” problem. I still have it 5 stars because the product is just a delight compared to many others in the category that I have bought. Adding just a few more ingredients can make it self-sufficient and the effect will be the same as how Apple ships their phones pre-charged. The customer excitement doesn’t die out. But still, overall worth our money.

Let me start off by saying that I am a teacher so I'm a bit of a tough sell when it comes to learning kits and lesson plans. So many of these sort of things are not created by educators and/or are not tested on kids. I plan on updating this review as we delve into each project (hoping to give a detailed review of each theme), but I have to say that so far I'm sort of disappointed. My first impression was that for the most part, the instruction cards seemed fabulous (with the exception that I could tell that maybe 1-2 things weren't going to function exactly right), FYI, there are about 12 themes-- each theme may have 3 activities with it, however, I would definitely do all 3 of the activities in one sitting-- so if you're looking for a summer enrichment program or something, I'd say it will maybe last you 1 hour each of 12 days. The first projects we did were: making a car out of dowel rods (axels), straws, cardboard, cardboard wheels, and stickers. This project was a flop. The kit came with pre cut cardboard wheels but they were useless because the cardboard was so thin. I had to find thicker cardboard to cut while my son lost interest and waited for my to use my "engineering skills" to fix what they gave us. Pretty sad for a first project. Ms. Fizzle and mommy lost their credibility during this time. Also, the sticks/dowel rods really should at least have been pointed (skewers) because the instructions said to push the dowel through (puncture) the cardboard wheels, but the fact that they weren't pointed further compromised the integrity of already flimsy cardboard (even the new wheels I made from cardboard shipping box). The second project (balloon taped to straw strung on string) worked OK, but again, I'm sure that the kits materials had been tested before hitting the shelves. The string included was nice and thin, but fluffy in nature and very hard and time consuming for even an adult to thread through a straw. This portion also came with a small clothes pin that was not carved correctly and I guarantee was never in a state of function. Lastly, the 3rd activity to this theme was taping a balloon with straw to the cardboard car to allow the car to move by means of the air blowing backwards. This was the worst! This really made me realize that these activities have not been tested. The force of the air against the friction of the wheels and light weight of the cardboard car-- smallest size for sticker to fit over it-- all properly installed according to instructions--were not enough to move the car AT.ALL. I don't know what kind of engineering this kit teaches other than the trouble-shooting involved with how badly these activities work compared to how they are designed to work. We have moved onto a 2nd theme-- solar energy. I did decide to opt out of the 2 mini-experiments leading up to the making of our own solar oven. (These experiments were just shining a flashlight on foil to talk about reflection of light and putting white or black paper over a water balloon to learn about heat absorption and I would assume expansion of air. I just didn't think it would hold my son's attention while they are both things you learn while just wearing a light or dark shirt on a hot day or watching a floaty pop because you left it in a hot car.) The solar oven, however was a success! Other than the fact that the cardboard wasn't exactly where the card said it was, we were able to create the project with some glue I already had (didn't use the cheap bottle provided because it was taking too long to get going). We put the graham crackers, chocolate, and marshmallows out on the front porch on a warm afternoon and it wasn't long before the chocolate was melting and not long after that the marshmallows were puffy. We didn't have to worry about the bugs or birds finding them because it functioned quickly. During this time we could also talk about the reflection of light from the tin foil sides (again, didn't need the flashlight or mini-lesson). Anyway, on a positive note, we have not trashed our solar oven and may use it again with the remaining chocolate or try making nachos.

My 5 year old had a blast with the engineering lab. He loved learning how things work. But a few of the labs did not work as they explained in the directions. A few cards also had grammar mistakes or showed inaccurate picture diagrams that made it confusing.