My nephew is into this. The great thing about the bicarb style ones is that he can actually play with the ingredients. And this is what "experimenting" should

My nephew is into this. The great thing about the bicarb style ones is that he can actually play with the ingredients. And this is what "experimenting" should be. Trying things out and seeing what happens. The fun is finding out what happens when you use the kit in an unexpected way and make a mess on the ceiling. The problem with the more exciting/interesting experiments is that play has a larger potential blast radius. And understandably adults impose more limits which then leads to less actual experimenting. And that actually makes it less fun. Because the best experiment is to start with random chemicals and seeing what happens. Not a carefully curated set with predictable results. The boring failure and the unexpected result are all part of the fun.