EARTH SCIENCE

SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENT

MENTOS and COKE

with the
PROPELLED
SKATEBOARD
Members:
Sr. Jeanette M. Formentera
Jhane Via C. Amano
Bianca Patriece V. Gabriel
James Arvin M. Lozano

Professor:
Sr. Myla Luñoza, dsfs

Introduction
A Diet Coke and Mentos eruption (alternately diet coke and mentos geyser or mentos eruption) is a reaction
between the carbonated beverage Diet Coke and Mentos mints that causes the beverage to spray out of its
container. Our addition to this known experiment is the use of a skateboard to add pressure to the eruption. The
gas released by the candies creates an eruption that pushes most of the liquid up and out of the bottle and the
pressure that the use of the skateboard brought, caused the eruption to become higher. It’s been called the
“vinegar and baking soda” reaction for a new generation. Lee Marek and "Marek's Kid Scientists" were the first to
demonstrate the experiment on television in 1999. Steve Spangler's televised demonstration of the eruption in
2005 went viral on YouTube, launching a chain of several other Diet Coke and Mentos experiment viral videos.

History

In the 1980s, Wint-O-Green Life Savers were used to create soda geysers. The tubes of candies were threaded onto
a pipe cleaner and dropped into the soft drink to create a geyser. At the end of the 1990s the manufacturer of
Wintergreen Lifesavers increased the size of the mints and they no longer fit in the mouth of soda bottles. Science
teachers found that Mint Mentos candies had the same effect when dropped into a bottle of any carbonated soft
drink.
Lee Marek and "Marek's Kid Scientists" performed the Diet Coke and Mentos experiment on the Late Show with
David Letterman in 1999. In March 2002,Steve Spangler, a science educator, did the demonstration on KUSA-TV, an
NBC affiliate, in Denver, Colorado. The Mentos Geyser Experiment became an internet sensation in September
2005. The experiment became a subject of the television show Mythbusters in 2006. Spangler signed a licensing
agreement with Perfetti Van Melle, the maker of Mentos, after inventing an apparatus aimed to make it easier to
drop the Mentos into the bottle and produce a large soda geyser. Amazing Toys, Spangler's toy company, released
the Geyser Tube toys in February 2007. In October 2010, a Guinness World Record of 2,865 simultaneous geysers
was set at an event organized by Perfetti Van Melle at the SM Mall of Asia Complex, in Manila, Philippines. This
record was afterwards beaten in November 2014 by another event organized by Perfetti Van Melle and Chupa
Chups in Leon, Guanajuato, Mexico where 4,334 Mentos and soda fountains were set off simultaneously.

Hypothesis

In the original experiment, the hypothesis was if Mentos were dropped into the diet coke, there would be an
eruption.
In our experiment, we wanted to see the effect of more mentos dropped in to the coke. Furthermore, we wanted
to know the outcome if we taped the coke to the skateboard. Will it propel the skateboard or not? Therefore, our
hypothesis is if Mentos were dropped into the diet coke, while the diet coke is taped to the skateboard, our
eruption will become stronger and it would also cause the skateboard to move.

Materials
  1.75 L of Coke
 10-15 pieces of Mentos (it will be better if you have extras)
 1 Skateboard
 Tape (masking tape or packing tape)
 Scissors
 Paper

Procedures

STEP 1: Get your materials.

STEP 2: Step 2: Prepare the mentos. Wrap 9 pieces inside a piece of paper and then tape both of the ends securely.

STEP 3: Make a hole in the bottle cap of the coke. Tape the coke and the skate board together.
STEP 4: Quickly drop the wrapped Mentos inside the coke.

STEP 5: Prepare for launch. Shake the skateboard so that there would be more pressure.

STEP 6: See the results!

Results
After dropping the Mentos into the coke, the eruption became higher and was with more force. The addition of
the extra number of Mentos leads to the rapid nucleation of carbon dioxide gas bubbles precipitating out of
solution. We have seen that the eruption in this experiment was higher than the eruption conducted last time
when we conducted the original one without changing any variables. The additional pressure caused by the
shaking of the skateboard also caused the eruption to increase and brought extra force to the whole experiment. It
caused the movement of the skateboard although we would have liked it to move farther, but we have forgotten
to put into consideration its weight.

Discussion and Conclusion

We had a wonderful time in conducting our experiment. A few other trials were done before we finalized it. On our
first try, we used different flavours of Mentos instead of the original one and it resulted in the eruption becoming
less high. This was because of the differed content of the flavoured Mentos.
We also tried to measure the highest eruption between four small bottles all equally filled with coke and each had
increasing numbers of the Mentos mint. We did not see the results clearly because the volume of the coke was not
proportionate with the number of the Mentos. The increased quantity was too strong for the small coke. We
concluded in that trial that the volume of the coke matters as much as the quantity of the Mentos for the eruption
to happen.
In our final experiment, we have seen the eruption become higher and stronger, causing the skateboard to move
forward. Although if we were to perform the experiment again, we will remember to consider the skateboard’s
weight and to make a bigger hole in the bottle cap. Furthermore, we have observed that a big factor of the
eruption is the shaking of the skateboard beforehand because it increases the pressure inside the coke.
Therefore, the increased number of Mentos and the additional pressure from the shaking of the skateboard with
the coke, will cause the eruption to become higher and will be able to make the skateboard propel.