Oh come on... I haven't read the news story, but seriously... didn't you guys play with firecrackers when you were a kid? Didn't you always want to make something blow up?
It's a very guy thing... Things burning, crashing, blowing up... LOtsa noise fire and smoke.
The noise, fire, and smoke is half the fun of model rockets, racing engines, pulling tractors, potato guns, and the space shuttle if you ask me.
I never wanted to blow some-ONE up though... I'm not defending whatever the kid did at school. (Yeah I made a couple stink bombs too...)