The Bottom Line
Pros
- All inclusive, with the exception of a few items you'd find in your kitchen
- Experiments are interesting and fun
- Easy-to-follow experiment directions with fantastic illustrations
Cons
- Some of the equipment is small and easy to lose
Description
- Some additional equipment is required but easily found around the house.
- A notation section is included in the back of the experiment book.
- Offers a variety of projects including invisible ink, jelly plastic, glow-in-the-dark dough, hard rock candy, and more.
Guide Review - Review of Extreme Secret Formula Lab
Aimed at the over 8 age group, this kit includes The Mad Lab Journal of 20 easy-to-conduct experiments, along with the equipment a curious tween would need to see the projects through from beginning to end. Additional ingredients needed for the experiments are easy enough to find in most home pantries, bathrooms, or sewing baskets.
The experiments range from the yummy (making hard rock candy) to the gross (glowing alien blood). Other projects you might recognize from your own childhood, such as how to make invisible ink or glow-in-the dark slime.
The book's illustration make executing the projects as easy as pie, as they walk the reader through step-by-step. The SmartLab mascot, a chocolate lab in glasses and science garb, appears throughout the book and offers up scientific facts and suggestions.
In addition to the book the kit includes a mixing bowl, a beaker, glow-in-the dark powder, a funnel, a test tube stand, an eyedropper, a mix-and-measure scoop, two test tubes with squishy lids, and a sticker sheet.
Items your children will have to come up with on their own in order to conduct the experiments include coffee filters, scissors, crayons, dental floss, paper, glue stick, etc.
Other kits in the SmartLab line-up include Car Design Studio, Fashion Studio, Electronics Lab, Weather Station, and Amazing Animal.
