As a grade school kid, I was taken to the police station for making a bomb with a couple friends. Fortunately for us, no charges were pressed (presumably because we didn’t manage to ignite the bomb and it was the 70s).
I met someone on holiday whose brother has been blinded for life by a pipe bomb he and a friend made. So the risks of messing around with that sort of thing are very real. Better to couple youthful enthusiasm with some adult oversight. It can still be a lot of fun (see my comments on youth rocketry competitions elsewhere in this discussion).