Mission to Mars Review
Reviewed by Melody Floyde
I was very happy to be asked to review the John Adams Mission to Mars set, which is a box of five different scientific activities aimed at children aged 8+. With it being the school holidays, I struggle to think of things to do with my two sons (aged 4 and 8) to keep them entertained which are both fun and educational so I was very keen to see what this set had to offer.
My 8-year-old son was already beyond excited when the set arrived and couldn’t wait to open it and have a go. He is really interested in space and science and is a member of his school astronomy club. He has learnt about Mars in one of the sessions so it captured his interest straight away. I had to slow him down and explain that I had to read the instructions and safety information for adults before we could start on any of the experiments. I was impressed that this information was detailed but also very clear and easy to understand. I was also reassured that none of the activities we were going to do had any real risk to them, apart from perhaps the rocket launch, but I’ll get to that later.
After I had familiarised myself with the instructions we had a look at the contents of the set which consisted of a Mars scene, parachute sheet, thread, plastic push out Mars rover and meteors, sand, iron filings, a rocket, green screen and also, most importantly, safety goggles which my son immediately put on. We then had to dig out another pair for his four-year-old brother to wear as they both wanted to look like scientists.
Then we embarked on our Mission to Mars. I read the facts about Mars to the boys so they knew what we were dealing with before starting our experiments.
Firstly, we were going to make some Martian Soil using sand, iron filings and salty water which we put into our Mars scene and stirred well. We then had to leave the tray for several days so that the magic (oxidation) could happen. The boys were so excited to find out what would happen and every morning they have been rushing downstairs to check on the soil and see if it has changed colour. After three days it has started to turn a good deep red colour so we now have our Martian soil.
The next activity we embarked on was landing our Mars Rover. The Mars Rover itself was easy to make with some push together plastic pieces – my four-year-old made this one. We then had to attach two different sized parachutes to the Rover to see which one would give the Rover the softest landing. The parachutes were easy to make, I had to cut them both out of a large plastic sheet, put holes in them and then attach the thread. For the actual landings I had to stand on a chair and drop each parachute several times to the ground, whilst my son timed them (using the stopwatch on my phone) and we then calculated the average time for each. Before doing the test we had predicted that the larger one would give the softest landing… but were we right? I don’t want to give away all of the answers!
We then moved onto a rocket launch. This was a really simple experiment using a very sturdy plastic rocket from the set. We had to put half of a soluble vitamin c tablet and two teaspoons of water into the rocket, press the two parts together and wait to see what happened. At first we thought nothing was happening as we seemed to be watching for some time, but then the rocket launched with an almighty bang, hitting our ceiling and causing a bit of a mess from the vitamin c mixture – it also caused us to jump! It certainly was an impressive rocket launch. With hindsight (and on the second time doing the experiment) we took the rocket outside, and stood well back!
The next activity was to make craters in our Mars Soil, we had to wait a few days to do this one as we were waiting for our soil to turn red and dry out. We made meteors from plastic push out parts and then dropped them into our soil and pushed them in to see what happened.
Finally, we looked at “Augmented Reality Scenery” using an app which was free to download onto my phone and a green screen. Once we got the hang of this – you have to line the phone’s camera up exactly with the green screen – it was really cool. There were four different scenes which were projected onto the green screen, and there was also the function to record these as videos. The boys loved this and we spent a long time repeating these over and over.
I thought this kit was fantastic, the experiments were fun and captured the boys’ attention. All of the pieces were great quality and felt really robust. The instructions were detailed and easy to follow and I really liked the clear scientific explanations of what had happened in each experiment so that the boys would understand what they had done and why. I also liked the fact that the activities had to be done over a period of time so the boys’ interest was captured for several days.
I would highly recommend this Mission to Mars set to anyone looking for a fun and educational activity for their children. I will be checking out to see what other sets are available.
Rating: 5/5
For more information visit www.johnadams.co.uk.
