After seeing the Diet Coke & Mentos thing Marcus and I figured we would give it a try on the back deck. After loading up on a few packs of mentos and 2 liter bottles of DC we got to work. Naturally the original plan was to just drop a few mentos into the DC and let the fireworks ensue. Well, the problem there is that the DC starts bubbling up on the first mento - which makes getting the second one in like trying to get a pebble down a volcano.
We quickly realized the key to the process is delivering a significant number of mentos at the same time. So we figured a good plan was to use some sort of plastic tube and force the mentos in using a stick. Naturally, there was a bit of concern about getting the tube back out quickly - but we figured we'd give that plan a try. So after a quick trip to the hardware store we came back with some plastic tube and a thin dowel.
Well, the mentos didn't fit whole into the tube, so we chopped them up and put them in the tube. However, mentos have a somewhat gooey center and when you apply the dowel to force them out, they quickly compress together and goo up - blocking the tube up (giving a reasonable visualization of what a blocked artery looks like).
Marcus and I went back to the drawing board and decided the trick was to somehow connect the mentos together and get them into the bottle on their own. So after a few mins playing with rubber bands and Elmer's glue we stumbled upon tape. If you make small tape rings (sticky on both sides) you can connect about 8 or so mentos together - and probably more if you really did a nice job of it.
Now we were in business. We dropped eight taped together mentos into the two liter bottle of DC and had a quite respectable fountain.
Now - in the real DC & Mentos video (click here to see) they have made an important modification in that the caps are still on which means they've made a smaller blow hole. You can also see they're using string in some fashion to deliver the mentos (hence the smaller blow hole). I think the trick here is to decant a small amount of DC so you can get a good number of mentos hanging in side the bottle as you reattach the lid (with a small hole to let the coke out - leading to a higher fountain).
That said - to get a basic experiment going - about 8 mentos connected by tape is a good start. We will let you know how it goes once Marcus and I crack the code on the "with lid" version. Buy stock in Coke and mentos - we're going through 'em like crazy around here ;-)
After many months of speculation and rumor about his true leanings, young Will Roizen (a.k.a. Mr. Willy) has gone public with his support of the Oakland A's.