Gifted for review
Joshua loves collecting things. Be they acorns, sticks, Lego cards or raisin boxes he will happily save them all up, look for patterns and refuse to throw them away!
He also likes experimenting to find out how things work, especially if that involves the potential for making a bit of a mess!
So we were very keen to try out the Beaker Creatures Liquid Reactor Super Lab when we were given the chance to receive a copy for review.
Once out of the box the set up is pretty straightforward with just 2 syringes and a plastic tube to click into place and a couple of rubber tubes to attach underneath. Once they are all in place you’re ready to go with the main event, which is the reveal of the Beaker Creature from its egg.
The set comes with two eggs, each containing a mystery creature hidden within. The eggs are quite similar to a bath bomb and achieve a similar effect when water is added to them, albeit not many bath bombs have alien creatures hidden inside!
The egg goes into the main tube and you then suck water up into the two syringes from a couple of conical beakers and lock them into place ready for action.
Then it’s time for the magic to happen! Here’s a video of Joshua plunging the plungers, which squeezes the water into the egg chamber and starts the chemical reaction that liberates the mystery beaker creatures.
As you can see, there’s a fairly satisfying eruption of colourful bubbles and lots of exciting fizzyness. Fortunately it comes with a spill tray so that most of the water gets safely caught in there!
After a couple of minutes and a bit of stirring your creature will reveal itself and you can pick him / her out using the supplied tweezers.
Once you’ve plucked out your new little friend you can work out who / what species they are using the enclosed identification sheet. As you can see, there’s loads to collect so more than enough to keep little ones interested, as long as you can keep the eggs coming!
As a collectible series it’s a pretty fun concept as it combines collecting with science, so there’s a bit of learning going on as you collect.
Aside from the collectibles aspect, there are a few other experiments you can do, although the ones covered in the instructions all require food colouring, which isn’t supplied unfortunately.
These extra experiments are fairly simple, such as looking at how colours mix together to form new colours and looking at how water moves when under pressure.
Joshua enjoyed using the Beaker Creatures Liquid Reactor Super Lab and finding his creatures which he has now befriended! It’s a fun, educational twist on the collectibles genre and one that should maintain interest for a good while. The set retails at £25 and is available at all good retailers!
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