Last month I did a review of ebeanstalk.com. I’m going to stand behind my positive review. I do love the idea of the website. I love that all of the toys are learning toys. I love that they not only categorize their toys by age, but also by development, which comes in handy not only for baby gifts and toys but also toys for elementary kids. I also love the absence of character toys. For pimping their website on my blog, I was sent the Cosmic Rocket. 
Which looked pretty darn amazing. The kids were very excited! We decided to save it for our first day of learning. What better way to kick this years science off, than with a rocket launch! I received a few emails about hurrying up and posting about the test toy. Something about how they specifically choose my blog to market to their target audience, they should have considered that my blog goes in spurts, weeks of daily posts and then months of nothing. It’s a good thing that I promised this post for today, otherwise, I would have postponed the first day of school until next week. I figure that as headmistress, I can do whatever my heart desires. Especially after spending the weekend with a conference of unschoolers, I had much better things to do than crack a math book. There were places to visit and naps to be taken. Alas, a promise is a promise, we started school today (which was pretty good) and we tested out our rocket, and here’s my review.
I was rather disappointed. I was disappointed on a few levels.
What I love about ebeanstalk is that the website isn’t marketing to sell a toy to me, they are helping me pick the perfect toy for not only my kids age but their developmental stage. I made them aware of the age ranges of my kids: 3 to 13. This rocket, ages 14+. I don’t have a 14+, unless you consider my husband. In their defense, it does say not for ages under 3. I was really excited to find out which toy that they would pick for us, turns out it wasn’t very specific for our family.
Another unique thing about ebeanstalk is that with each toy they send out a has an accompanying card with it. The card gives specific ways to play with the toy to enhance learning. I was very excited about the card. I love learning toys and I wanted to know more exciting and fun ways that I could help my kids get the most out of it. I didn’t get a card. This probably had something to do with the toy not necessarily being age appropriate for my kids.
The age thing didn’t really stop us. We read the directions, which included lots of information on rockets and how our baking soda/vinegar rocket would work. The box says that the rocket can launch up to 50 feet. The kids wanted to take it to the local elementary school, I convinced them that the front yard would do. Turns out we could have done it at the kitchen table.
Mike was in charge of the baking soda.
Marshall was in charge of vinegar.
by the way, if you love this shirt, I can make it for you!
After careful measuring and pouring, our rocket did this:
and take 2: nothing. We adjusted the base and stopped the leaking. take 3: nothing. take 4: more nothing. take 8: Mike picked it up and some how shot it across the street at the neighbors car (thank goodness for the rubber tip), this revived their interest. Take 9: nothing. Somewhere around take 12 we made Dave help and this resulted in still more nothing.
Somewhere around take 15, we all gave up and came back inside.
Though science was a bust, we still had fun and the kids learned a lot. At one point, Marshall yelled at Mike to back up because there was a chemical reaction taking place inside the rocket! We would have enjoyed seeing the rocket make it in the air, even an inch, but we had a good time thanks to ebeanstalk.com.
Overactiveovaries 
That is a really cool shirt… Do you have any with latin? preferably black?
Poor rocket 😦
I have found that when I’m trying to get a good reaction between baking soda and vinegar, having a fresh box and bottle respectively makes all the difference. My brother and I are fond of launching water rockets, but even with those you can put out an eye still so I’ll save my advice with those for a few more years.
I don’t think the problem was the ingredients. It was the connection. Either it leaked all over the ground or the rocket was too tight to launch. I will definitely buy a new bottle and box and the next time you come we’ll retry i!
I didn’t think about ingredient age either. Is it possible that the baking soda is 14+? 😉
The rocket must be pressed down onto the base. It will pop off and fly when the pressure of CO2 exceeds the static friction of the rocket to base.
Here is why you don’t give 14+ toys to 7 and 10 year olds:
They want a big boom so, rather than add what the instructions say, they double or triple it. No room for reaction.
They read in the instructions that more baking soda should be tried if it’s not working. They triple that. Unbalanced reaction.
They are excited to get it working and do sub-par jobs rinsing the rocket last trial out. Reaction before mating.
They are in a hurry to try again and do a subpar job drying. Wet baking soda before vinegar is added.
They were in a hurry to get out of the way before it blows. Mated too gently and the reaction leaked out the bottom.
They wanted to make sure the reaction wouldn’t leak out the bottom. It was on so hard, it took me 5 minutes to separate it.
I stopped them on the way to get oil to lubricate the separation surfaces.
And on and on.
Maybe the next run of this rocket will include diet coke and mentos. 🙂
Maybe the next run Dad can help to explain all of this in a way they can understand before they try again & get frustrated! It looks like it would be fun….
It’s not necessarily a matter of understanding. I learned this lesson when we gave an 8 year old a remote control airplane. The top trick the plane can do is a full loop. You must fly high, dive for speed, pull up, hit the booster while vertical, pull hard over the top and bring it back around. My 8 year old saw that it could do this in the instructions. In the first 5 seconds of flight, he pulled up, stalled it and it crashed. Then he did it again and again. I tried to explain that you must learn to crawl before you can run but he believes that it should be able to do what he wants it to and the box had a picture of a loop on it. He pulled and stalled and crashed over and over until the plane no longer could fly at all. The age limitation is not just a matter of physical skill but of restraint and discipline.
When we were doing this rocket, even though I told Mike not to put in more than 4 scoops, Marshall told him (quietly, where I couldn’t hear) to do 6. So, with 6, it didn’t work.
That all being said, it didn’t work for me either when I did it all myself. I measured the correct amounts and pushed with a reasonable amount of pressure. Maybe it’s just, as was suggested above, a matter of old baking soda. We will have to try again with a fresh box (and new vinegar because we used it all on this) when I get home.
[…] Our rocket didn’t work. […]