22-01-2006 08:45

Nitroxextreme

Re: pic: Mentors and Mentos

you have got to love the old Cola and Mentos reaction

22-01-2006 08:52

Billfred

Re: pic: Mentors and Mentos

I suppose my instinct to read the image description is faster than it takes to judge and post a new caption contest.

Wait, I still saw it... (hunts down his Neuralizer)

22-01-2006 09:09

Jessica Boucher

Re: pic: Mentors and Mentos

"Dave School"??

22-01-2006 10:32

Greg Marra

Re: pic: Mentors and Mentos

I think that Diet Pepsi works a bit better than any other soda. You might want to keep that in mind incase you ever decide to build a soda-and-mentos-propulsion system

22-01-2006 10:33

Nick Bailey

Re: pic: Mentors and Mentos

funny, we did the same thing at our shop a couple weeks ago while working on the ball drop.

22-01-2006 11:04

Alex Pelan

Re: pic: Mentors and Mentos

Hahaha...this is a favorite pastime of my group of friends. We've been working on turning it into an s-dub tradition. Diet coke is the best, though

22-01-2006 12:09

Tytus Gerrish

Re: pic: Mentors and Mentos

i just did that in out shop a week ago and it was too dark to take a picture.

22-01-2006 12:10

MissInformation

Re: pic: Mentors and Mentos

We did two bottles of diet coke first and then a bottle of root beer and then coke. The first bottle of diet coke was absolutely spectacular! I took a video of it so I have no photos of it, however I believe the diet coke reached a height somewhere between 8 or 10 feet. The second bottle of diet coke was good but not as good as the first, partially, I think, because half of the mentos ended up on the ground rather than in the soda. Second diet coke. As you can see, the shapes the exploding soda took on are really, really cool! I've never been this excited about diet coke before!

I want to do more of these for two reasons, the first being, it's just fun to turn a 2 litre bottle of soda into a geyser, and two, I think it would be cool to get some super closeup photos of the soda as it erupts.

How many other sodas have any of you tried it with? Sprite/diet? Dr. Pepper/diet? Ginger ale/diet? Diet root beer? Mountain Dew/diet?

Heidi

22-01-2006 12:20

JBotAlan

Re: pic: Mentors and Mentos

We accidentally discovered this reaction at new years. My brother put Spree into a bottle of caffiene-free Pepsi, and it shot all over his bed...it was really funny! We tried to recreate this, but it didn't really work. It was great seeing the geyser of Pepsi shooting all over him, though!

22-01-2006 12:56

Kris Verdeyen

Re: pic: Mentors and Mentos

Someone please tell me what to do. I slept through 2-liter chemistry in high school, but now I see the error of my ways. I gather that the ingrediants are Mentos and Diet Soda, but I lack the procedure. Someone who's hip, please clue me in.

22-01-2006 12:58

Amanda Morrison

Re: pic: Mentors and Mentos

I was going to make a witty, 'Haha, Dave's a dork' comment until I saw the look of pure joy on his face.

It's like a five year old at Christmas. I just shouldn't mess with that.




especially when the mental capacity is about the same

22-01-2006 13:02

JBotAlan

Re: pic: Mentors and Mentos

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

2. Open the bottle of Diet Coke.

3. Position your right hand over the neck of the bottle so that the Mentos are directly above the bottle.

4. Open your fingers so that the Mentos drop into the Coke.

Voila!!!

Sorry, couldn't resist making a procedure for this...lol

JBotAlan

22-01-2006 13:44

phrontist

Re: pic: Mentors and Mentos

It looks like dave used a tube to drop them in... I think you need to use a few to really get a good reaction!

What is the story with "Dave School"? I saw him wearing that shirt yesterday...

22-01-2006 13:52

ctshirk7

Re: pic: Mentors and Mentos

i saw it the other day too maybe its just a way of saying daves cool...
this looks like a fun destructive passtime... we might not get much done today...

22-01-2006 14:44

mechanicalbrain

Re: pic: Mentors and Mentos

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?

22-01-2006 17:54

MissInformation

Re: pic: Mentors and Mentos

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

22-01-2006 18:09

Simon Strauss

Re: pic: Mentors and Mentos

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

22-01-2006 18:53

viking1902

Re: pic: Mentors and Mentos

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...?

22-01-2006 19:02

Arkorobotics

Re: pic: Mentors and Mentos

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

22-01-2006 19:09

Tyler 783

Re: pic: Mentors and Mentos

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.

22-01-2006 19:11

Wetzel

Re: pic: Mentors and Mentos

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

It looks really awesome.

Wetzel

22-01-2006 19:23

Yellow Eyes

Re: pic: Mentors and Mentos

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.

22-01-2006 20:23

Damelvin

Re: pic: Mentors and Mentos

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.

22-01-2006 21:14

Arkorobotics

Re: pic: Mentors and Mentos

I hope our mentors will let us do this..

22-01-2006 22:00

Mr.Fraggs

Re: pic: Mentors and Mentos

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

25-01-2006 12:20

Elgin Clock

Re: pic: Mentors and Mentos

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.

29-01-2006 10:09

dlavery

Re: pic: Mentors and Mentos

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.

15-03-2006 23:23

ZPaul

Re: pic: Mentors and Mentos

Billfred, let's do it!

25-03-2006 18:54

Spiffizzle

Re: pic: Mentors and Mentos

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?

03-06-2006 20:32

Billfred

Re: pic: Mentors and Mentos

Imagine my surprise when MAKE: included a link to video of 200 liters of Diet Coke going skyward.

I guess it is possible to beat Dave at something after all!

03-06-2006 21:15

MissInformation

Re: pic: Mentors and Mentos

That was almost better than fireworks! What I wouldn't give to have been there to photograph it!

Heidi

03-06-2006 21:38

anna~marie

Re: pic: Mentors and Mentos

Wow... that had to cost a lot... I wonder how long it took them to plan it
I like it!

05-06-2006 08:33

anna~marie

Re: pic: Mentors and Mentos

Just a funny anecdote...
I sent this email to some people and it worked its way to my youth pastor.
So last night at youth group we had a fun 'game'...
People were suppose to slide 4 mentos into some 2 liter bottles and then try and 'drink' the mentos out... absolutely great reactions on the people's faces...