My brother, he's 52 now, made rockets as a kid. One time, he smoked the house, some chemicals that didn't work. My mom came running out of the shower naked. eeewwww!
They worked, not as intended.
We smoked the house also, and spent some time in the emergency ward. We handn't healed from that one when we tried to make a liquid fuel ramjet. That was the biggest bunsen burner in town.
We had fun, learned a lot, and were pretty capable of making most anything by the time we were in high school.