pic: Mentors and Mentos

[mechanicalbrain]

hmmm Ive just bean struck by the magical inspiration fairy. Imagine a hydraulics system powering the wheels of a robot. Now fill the system with Diet coke and a mentos injection system... We could have a chemically powered robot! I wonder how much PSI you could build up?

[MissInformation]

So, I searched around the Internet to figure out why it reacts this way, and a lot of sites say that it's the gum arabic that is in mentos (and other candies) that causes the surface tension of the water molecules to break easily, which releases more carbon dioxide gas which leads to the eruption. There's a site called Steve Spangler Science that has a couple of videos showing the mentos in different kinds of soda, and guess what? It appears that mentos do not react stronger in diet coke than in other sodas. Diet coke started being used more because it's easier (not as sticky) to clean up. The tricky part is getting the mentos into the bottle at the same time. In our first bottle of soda, we used a small tube and placed about a roll of mentos in the soda and the results were spectacular. In the remaining bottles we used a larger tube and I believe they tried to put more mentos in (the whole philosophy that more is better) and while the results were still uber-cool, they didn't reach anywhere near the height of the first one, which leads me to believe that we didn't get them in at the same time. Another website said that using plain carbonated water was really impressive. And yet another site said that carefully putting several sugar packets into a 2 liter bottle (which will fizz a little) and then shaking it up will give you a weapon of mass eruption.

I really think more experimentation is needed! I wish my biology class was this exciting.

Heidi

[Simon Strauss]

if you like the affects of this but don't want to waste so much soda (that could be used for such better things) you can get a similar but more focused result by taking a shaken can of soda and using a mallet and sharpened metal punch or pen put a whole in the little disk that holds the tab onto the bottle. the part that makes this way better is that its reusable by placing your finger over the whole and shaking and is much easier to aim at mentors or anyone else of your choice (i have a video of this that ill link to at some point)

also in my experience Mr. Pibb works the best for anything like this and you wont feel bad for waisting good tasting soda

[viking1902]

Originally Posted by Jessica Boucher

"Dave School"??

DAVE School = Digital Animation and Visual Effects School. Its here in Orlando, FL and its run by Universal Studios. Here is a link to their site. All I want to know is how Dave got that shirt...?

[Arkorobotics]

What if you where to eat mentos and drink diet coke at the same time?

[Tyler 783]

Actualy another way to the same spectacular result, is by dropping a glowing red hot peice of copper tubbing in the bottle. This actualy yeilds better results since, CO2 is more soluble in water at lower temperatures. So for best results make sure the pop is good and cold. Other then the fact that you can get consitent 10 ft geysers, you get to play with fire and red hot metal, these are the reasons why this is my prefered method for pop bottle geysers.

[Wetzel]

Originally Posted by Arkorobotics

What if you where to eat mentos and drink diet coke at the same time?

Then Dave's face looks like he is going to vomit and laugh at the same time.

It looks really awesome.

Wetzel

[Yellow Eyes]

This also works with Bawls and Bawls mints. Less of a reaction, but still fun to do. We did that at kick-off last year, and we didn't know it would happen. Great 20 minute distraction break.

[Damelvin]

I have seen a video of this on the web: http://stupidvideos.com/video/just_p...ntos_cocktail/
Probably going to try this next week at school.

[Arkorobotics]

I hope our mentors will let us do this..

[Mr.Fraggs]

hehe nice i love that first shot dave looks happy

i just posted the videos in the chit chat section
videos to this crazy stuff

ohh and about eating mentos then drinking coke ... yeah dave tried that in the first vid


cuuu

[Elgin Clock]

Originally Posted by JBotAlan

1. Take the Mentos (or Spree, they work the same) in your right hand.....

What if you are left handed? Does the procedure depend solely on holding the object in your right hand?

Will there be no chemical reaction if you hold it in your left??

Cause.. that would be weird.

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by Elgin Clock

What if you are left handed? Does the procedure depend solely on holding the object in your right hand?

Will there be no chemical reaction if you hold it in your left??

Cause.. that would be weird.

You must hold the Mentos in your right hand, otherwise it won't work. Everyone knows that the sweeteners in Mentos are levorotary sugar compounds, so if you hold the Mentos in your left hand they will spin away from the center of mass and thus be able to escape before the reaction occurs. If you hold them in your right hand, then they will be spinning toward your body and (presuming the bottle of soda is in front of you) the reactant.

[ZPaul]

Billfred, let's do it!

[Spiffizzle]

WHOA! That's a good explosion!

Our team tried that! We have videos... but ours were never that good... Then again, we used Diet and I'm noticing you have regular there...

Does regular Coke work better than Diet Coke?