Mentos/Diet Coke 4th of July fountain

David_S85

Our own cheap fireworks were nothing special for the holiday, but a friend brought over a 2-liter diet coke and we tried the Mentos mints trick to produce a fountain. Well worth the dollar spent.

Dial-up warning - this is 1.3MB animated .GIF with 10 images

firedancing4life

David_S85 wrote:

Our own cheap fireworks were nothing special for the holiday, but a friend brought over a 2-liter diet coke and we tried the Mentos mints trick to produce a fountain. Well worth the dollar spent.

Dial-up warning - this is 1.3MB animated .GIF with 10 images

I got to try that!

gus

Dont you just hate being the poorest in the street ..walking around looking for ones that didnt go off ?

David_S85

gus wrote:

Dont you just hate being the poorest in the street ..walking around looking for ones that didnt go off ?

One thing we definately are, is the poorest on the street. But I shoot with the nicest camera

In fact I did spent a few minutes this morning picking up fireworks debris off our front lawn. Trash from the neighbor kids. Our own fireworks were smokebombs, flares, and the legal type our overly paranoid state (Illinois) allows for sale.

Of course, everybody who knows anything about fireworks knows that its the illegal stuff that's way more fun. Some powerful firecrackers did nicely to share the love with our elderly hearing impared neighbors. Just enough to startle them, and not enough for them to call the police.

The Mentos fountain was interesting, but far from the noisy conventional stuff. But after seeing these on TV and internet videos, we had to add it to the festivities.

Prop the soda bottle up well. 3 Mentos mints to one warm 2-liter diet soda. Toss 'em in real fast, and run run run.

gus

David_S85 wrote:

the legal type our overly paranoid state (Illinois) allows for sale.

Hey..you got it good...they took them of us in the late '70s because of too many bush fires & blown up mail box's. We called it Guy Fawkes night.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, 'twas his intent to blow up the King and the Parliament. Three score barrels of powder below, Poor old England to overthrow: By God's providence he was catch'd With a dark lantern and burning match. Holloa boys, holloa boys, make the bells ring. Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King! Hip hip hoorah!

DavidTO

On that site with the big mentos/diet coke display they have a how-to. It basically involves drilling a 1/8 to 1/4 inch hole in the cap of the diet coke, and then drilling a small hole in each of the mentos. You then string the mentos with either a straightened paper clip or fishing line or something, feed it up through the botton of the coke lid, and then screw the lid on, keeping the mentos above the level of the coke. When you're ready, release the mentos and stand back. The smaller hole makes for a longer, taller display of spewed coke.

David_S85

three score is what? 60 barrels? That would'a been a bit loud.

Here's an example of all the fun "legal" Illinois fireworks can give. The girls are pulling on a couple wimpy strings with a microscopic loaded charge in the middle. Hard to see.


Here's a 100% crop to make it visible. Timing is everything. The girls got timing. And I captured the "explosions."


That's why people risk traveling to Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, or somewhere else to buy the real stuff and hope they don't get caught.

David_S85

DavidTO wrote:

On that site with the big mentos/diet coke display they have a how-to. It basically involves drilling a 1/8 to 1/4 inch hole in the cap of the diet coke, and then drilling a small hole in each of the mentos. You then string the mentos with either a straightened paper clip or fishing line or something, feed it up through the botton of the coke lid, and then screw the lid on, keeping the mentos above the level of the coke. When you're ready, release the mentos and stand back. The smaller hole makes for a longer, taller display of spewed coke.

Sure, now you tell me. Dude, wait 'til next year! :

Red Bull

At least you don't live here in California. They don't allow any fireworks here. :cry

I've tried the Mentos thing a while back. The directions I had were to drop 13 Mentos into a 2 liter bottle of soda. I got a fountain that rose about 15 feet into the air. Quite fun. Diet soda works better and it leaves less of a sticky mess. I have a video somewhere...

David_S85

Red Bull wrote:

.... I have a video somewhere...

Well, you know what to do then. When can we see it?

Dee

I live in California and we have fireworks!
We have the "legal" ones and they are sold all over town. We are one of two towns in San Mateo County (south of San Francisco) that sell and allow them. They make enough noise and the "sparkler" ones shoot about 7 to 8 feet high. It seems there's always that one family on the block that goes and buys out the firework stand and sets them off all night long!

Oh well, I will say they are pretty careful and the adults supervised... but there are the occasional people who get illegal ones and we see them streaming into the air high above the trees.

Dee

Mentos and diet coke?
That's amazing... I bet my grandson would love that! :

That's quite an animated gif too! I got a real chuckle out of it...

Skippy

David_S85 wrote:

Our own cheap fireworks were nothing special for the holiday, but a friend brought over a 2-liter diet coke and we tried the Mentos mints trick to produce a fountain. Well worth the dollar spent.

Dial-up warning - this is 1.3MB animated .GIF with 10 images

Hi David......... I saw this done on TV not so long ago, I was quite shocked at how high the flow from the bottle of Soda Pop went up
Aren't you just too clever to posted an animation of the whole thing online Mr Smarty Pants ....... looks like a heap of fun.

Most Fireworks have been banned in Victoria for many years now, for reason that Gus gave and I am pretty sure it had to do with the shocking burns that many children and others received in accidents involving fireworks.

I gotta say though I do enjoy a decent fireworks display especially around New Year and Australia Day........ take care David, and say hi to your dear wife for me too Skippy (Australia)

Seefutlung

Red Bull wrote:

At least you don't live here in California. They don't allow any fireworks here. :cry ...

Not true ... maybe in San Diego and Orange counties, but in Los Angeles and San Bernardino plenty of communities allow fireworks .. the beauty of Independance Day in SoCal is to mosey down to Mexico and get the "real" stuff, (not firecrackers ... although they are fun, but real starlight shells), Now you have a backyard firework show worthy of a revolution.

PS- Those string things are a bit enemic ... but I gotta try the Mentos and Coke thing. (Maybe in Mexico they have eight liter bottles of Coke and supersized Mentos ... )

Andy

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4077724936497803978

coupla other vids here, incl the 18' record!
http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/experiment/00000109

Dave nice post

David_S85

Thanks Andy!

Interesting article (2nd link). The scientist they speak of, Lee Marek, is from Naperville, IL., teaching H.S. science. He has been a guest on David Letterman's show several dozen times, along with the kid scientists he teaches. He was also a frequent customer of my store.

One time, he came in to ask how many ways there were to inflate bicycle inner tubes. We sold him a high-end pump, which I assume he used in the classroom to deliver more than just air (I could only imagine what he was going to use it for). And actually, when I did finally ask him on a subsequent visit, he only said "well, we're having fun with it." He also used it to air his bike tires, as he rarely drove a car.

Anyway, he is a strange one. I taught him how to use a plyers to hold the valve, and with the air chuck on a compressor hose, to inflate a tube (in mid air, no tire around it) until it grew to 10 times the size and then burst. Hours of fun. When he saw me do it, he had to practice it a few times himself. Unlike us pros, he wore gloves and a face shield (wimp!). Note: this is expensive to do with new inner tubes - so we used discarded tubes that had holes in them, with that part cut off, and then the tube was tied in a knot. He took an assortment of tubes from the trash bin with him.

I never saw him do anything with the pump or blowing up tubes on Letterman, but one of my employees thought he saw the pump on a re-run once.

Andy wrote:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4077724936497803978

coupla other vids here, incl the 18' record!
http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/experiment/00000109

Dave nice post

Red Bull

David_S85 wrote:

Well, you know what to do then. When can we see it?

Right now. I still had it on a memory card so I had to put it on the computer then put it on youtube. Taken with my Powershot A80.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WSbbb4UXts

Please excuse my sister's goofy laugh.

What I used:

-2 liter bottle of "Diet Rite" (cheapest stuff I could find)
-13 mentos
-PVC pipe (to get them all in there at once)

David_S85

Excellent
Very good. It could only have been better if that car had run over it as it reached its zenith.

Thanks for sharing that.

digitalpins

lol, I did this also this weekend.....
lol, I did this also this weekend.....

here are two pics of my sister caught of me setting it off

Awais Yaqub

: wow never seen this before

David_S85

Awais Yaqub wrote:

: wow never seen this before

Awais, Mentos/Diet Coke fountains are becoming the new national pastime here. Give it a try in your country. You just might become famous!

Awais Yaqub

David_S85 wrote:

Awais, Mentos/Diet Coke fountains are becoming the new national pastime here. Give it a try in your country. You just might become famous!

Great Idea !!