Steve Spangler explains that the reaction is caused by the small pockets of air "pits" in the Mentos candy that allows a lot of bubbles from the carbonation to form, basically releasing the gas from the soda bottle, causing a fountain.
It's really fun to try.
First you take a soda bottle and place it somewhere where a giant wet mess is going to be ok (aka the grass in a local park).
Then open the soda top (which you would save for a power vote towards Nerdy Science).
Then pop some Mentos candies into the bottle (1 will work, 2 is a little better, >2 seems a little wasteful)
Run away
Watch the explosion
Repeat (over and over and over again).
Just be careful the camera person is not in the line of action:
Things to experiment with:
1. Different sodas (warning: sugar soda leaves an icky, sticky mess).
2. Different sized bottles/cans.
3. Amount of Mentos added to soda (we started with a whole roll, but it seemed to give us a good reaction with even just 1 or 2).
4. Try different kinds of Mentos (fruit/mint).
5. Taste the soda before and after the Mentos experiment:
6. Taste the diet soda flavored Mentos.
7. Compare the Mentos you threw in the soda to fresh Mentos.
8. How high can you get the soda to shoot? Set a target to aim for. Adjust the size of the nozzle (hint: smaller diameter).
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Edited 6/30/13 to remove Pepsi Refresh Voting tag. Voting has long since ended.
P.S. I love you guys. Thanks for all of your support!
Hello!
ReplyDeleteI support the National Inclusion Project, and we have been looking for your Pepsi page. We will put you in our voting widget and ask that your supporters send us reciprocal votes.
The NIP Voting Widget is currently located in my 8/11 Carolina On My Mind blog (click on my name at the top). After today's edition, the widget will go into the sidebar where fans of Clay Aiken, one of the Inclusion Project's co-founders, can continue voting for reciprocating partners.
A grandmother, I am also sending your blog link to my daughter because my grandchildren would enjoy your experiments and then we can use those power codes! They don't drink soft drinks, so science is a perfect alternative.
All the best with your cause, and thank you for helping us!
Caro
NIP Pepsi Info: http://www.refresheverything.com/inclusionproject Text: 108169
Hi Caro - thanks for your support!! I need all of the votes you can give me. I've added the Inclusion Project to my voting tag at the end of each post. My supporters have been voting Inclusion and hopefully will continue. Thanks for all you do!!
ReplyDeleteHey!
ReplyDeleteWe actually did this when the mythbusters showed it on the show, and there is a definite difference between the different diet sodas in height, and a difference with the amount of mentos in there. more than four is pointless, but for height four gets highest levels. I wish my old computer hadn't eaten my pictures when it crashed, I'd send you the pictures of the results. :-) we used our old house as a measuring device :-) top of our roof was 20 feet and it surpassed that by about six feet.