Mind Blowing Science — Did it really blow our minds??

Review: Mind Blowing Science — Would it REALLY blow our minds??

Last Christmas, Santa must have sensed our kiddos getting more excited about STEM because he left the “My First Mind Blowing Science Kit” under the tree (Thanks Santa!).  Mind Blowing Science is an all-in-one kit that offers a series of experiments for kids to try.  For us, this was our very first “kit” purchase.  We were a little unsure about what to expect but excited to try it.

• Would it be hard to do?
• Would the kiddos understand what the experiments were about?
• Would I be able to get things to work??

Biggest question for us….is it really mind blowing??  Let’s science and find out!

Putting Mind Blowing Science to the test…

Santa brought this kit to our house.  BUT, this is a pretty easy one to find at Amazon, Walmart or other toy stores.  This is sold by Scientific Explorer at Alex Toys and you might be familiar with some of their other kits like “Magic Science for Wizards Only” or “Disgusting Science Kit”.  If Santa didn’t leave one at your house, you can expect to pay ~$15-20 for this kit, which is a pretty do-able price point.

We ended up running through a few of the experiments on a cold, dreary day.  The kit comes with materials to complete 11 different experiments:  dancing powders, color changing liquids, acid or base, colorful jiggly crystals, test tube sunset, giant jiggly crystals, color changing volcano, underwater volcano, color changing grapes, magic ooze, mix colors with your eyes.  We did not end up taking videos of our experiments due to some “technical issues” (aka momma misplaced the charger), but the one that the kiddos were most excited to try were the volcano experiments.

An oops right out of the gate…but we recovered!

One thing we did NOT realize until the box was open and the kiddos were hungry to experiment, was that not all of the necessary reagents/materials were actually in the box.  Oops.  All me here.

We did have most of the materials — grape juice was our missing one — and so we motored on to the “dancing powders” experiment, mix colors with eyes and color changing volcanoes.  We ended up not making it through all of the experiments but did ~4 that day.  Since then, maybe one more.

Mind Blowing Science from a few different points of view

Kiddo take

As we set up, the kiddos were pumped.  I mean, like literally jumping up and down!  The idea of making explosions was SO COOL!!  Mixing colors also neat.  However, as we got into the actual projects it was a bit of overpromise/underdeliver, especially after we couldn’t get the volcano to work…or at least it wasn’t as big as the kids were expecting.  Would they want to do it again?  Although they say “sure”, the box hasn’t moved much since the initial opening and I think that’s the biggest tell right there.

Mom take

Not realizing we needed additional materials was a bit of a let down.  Mostly because we assumed it was fully ready to go.  Not a big deal.  This is a project that you will need to supervise, so make sure you have a good time slot open on your calendar.  Overall, it seemed like the kids enjoyed it.  Did it live up to its “mind blowing” status? Eh…probably not. Good for a first timer though.

Scientist take

One thing that could be improved is the kit’s documentation.  The written materials gloss over many of the concepts and it didn’t appear that the kids were really understanding why things were happening or why we were mixing different reagents together. As we mentioned though, there are a few online tutorials/videos you can watch before jumping in, so that could be helpful.

What we would have done differently:

First, try to find a relatively clear, open working space.  We were crowded down in a basement room and ended up getting the instruction manual messed up (if you need a PDF, here is a link).  Overall, we encountered little trouble understanding how to do the experiments, although I do think this video would have been useful for us to run through before we started.

Minds Blown?  Maybe Not, But Made For Fun Afternoon

The kids learned all about acids-bases (check out our alka-seltzer rocket experiment for more fun there!).  And after accidentally mixing acids-bases and sealing the container, they learned why that can be dangerous.  🙂 We can smile about it now.  Overall, we think Mind Blowing Science is good for about an afternoon’s worth of fun.  However, money might be just as well spent doing other projects.

STEMMomma

STEMomma is a mother & former scientist/educator. She loves to find creative, fun ways to help engage kids in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and math).  When she’s not busy in meetings or carpooling kids, she loves spending time with the family and dreaming up new experiments or games they can try in the backyard.