Customer Reviews

Scientific Explorer's Meteor Rocket Science Kit

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

Our family has had a very good experience with the meteor rocket. It was given to our son as a birthday present and he's been having a great time with it. The directions for assembling the rocket were easy to follow and we didn't have any trouble putting it together. What I am most impressed by is how high the rocket flies with just baking soda and vinegar as fuel. It really does go up about 100 feet - to the great delight and amazement of our chiildren and all the assembled neighborhood kids. As a parent, I like the fact that the "fuel" is safe, and we can usually find a box of baking soda and some vinegar in the kitchen when the kids decide they want to do some rocket flying. There's a lot of educational value in this project. We've used the kit for some impromptu "science lessons" to explain and then demonstrate the power of chemical reactions. Everyone in our family thinks the rocket is awesome, and we highly recommend it.

I have fond memories of an elegantly designed, indestructible, baking soda/vinegar rocket that I had as a child. Since I had not seen them in the toystores I had thought of building one from scratch for my 4 year old son. Then I saw one advertised on Amazon which I happily ordered, my first Amazon order. Although I knew it was a kit I was surprised when my son opened the box and I found that I had paid 19.99+SH for 3 bits of balsa, some foil, a piece of plastic film, a 1 liter plastic pop bottle and a rubber stopper. After a moment of thinking I should pack it up and send it back I realized that my son's excitement about a rocket had trapped me into continuing. In a couple of hours I had assembled the rocket, in spite of the directions. We went out to launch. Unfortunately the rubber stopper assembly that plugs the rocket is poorly designed. Turning the wing nut is supposed to tighten the stopper but only turns the entire assembly and does not tighten the stopper. It blasted out of my hands a few times. Each landing battered the delicate rocket. The design is decidedly inelegant and fragile.

Although my feelings aren't quite as strong as the first reviewer's, I was also disappointed with the kit. It's a fairly complex building job, and the resulting rocket isn't great, and is decidedly fragile, good for 3 or 4 launches max before needing extensive repairs. It's performance is mediocre at best.

We bought this kit and put it together. It wasn't too hard to do but the rocket is very fragile. The kit is (structurally) a very, very poor design. When it comes down to it, it is a pop bottle with some cheap, flimsy fluff parts for decoration. I couldn't believe we paid ... for this thing. After only 3 mediocre launches (under 20 ft) the flimsy red plastic at the front of the rocket had split and the nose cone was cracked almost in half. In addition, the rocket fins were damaged. The toy .... I'm going to try and save you ... here. Don't waste your money on it!

This toy is one of the better toys I have found. My son (7) with a little assistance put the kit toghether. It flew first time much to the amusement of the family. The fins bend easily but if reinforced with some extra foil they keep the rocket upright for launch. This is an intresting'family' toy.

My husband helped my son assemble the Rocket kit for almost two hours. When they finally had completed it, my husband went out to try and launch it and it blew up in his face and sprayed baking soda and vinegar everywhere. My Son was very disappointed and decided to try it himself. It blew up in his face also. The Rocket did not launch. We ended up throwing it away. My opinion is this toy is a total waste of money and a big disappointment.

I put this rocket together w/ my 6 year old son as a fun project for the backyard. I was very disappointed w/ the construction. As we put it together, I was skeptical whether we would get more than a couple launches out of it. When we finally launched it, we had a couple of premature misfires because I did not put the stopper in tight enough giving us a a bit of a vinegar shower. We finally got the stopper correct only to see the plastic bottle blast off and leave the fins behind. The mylar tape failed to stick after getting wet w/ the vinegar. Since this is an adult supervised activity anyway, we have gone back to Estes rockets I flew as a kid w/ a lot more success.

"I built this rocket with help from my Mom. I cut the red stuff, the fins, put the nose on, and put the fins on. We put vinegar and baking soda in it. We went in the back yard and launched it off. It went BLASTING into the air a "thousand million feet!" (Well maybe thirty feet - Mom.)We flew it four times in a row. It's a VERY COOL toy. The end."

My son got this kit for his birthday. We had a lot of fun putting it together, but when it came time to launch, the fun ended. It did manage to lift off, but after a couple of mediocre launches, the rocket was in such bad shape, it was unuseable. Very poorly made. What not buy this for what it cost.

Quick to Assemble; Launches with Vinegar and Baking Soda; Use over and over again; this rocket soars!
Tip: When tightening the launch stopper, use plyers to hold the bolt in place while you tighten the screw nut