A beautiful summer day called me to do a fantastic experiment. Do you remember way back when we did the grand finale to the first book? I had my friends over and we explored the reaction between Diet Coke and Mentos? Well, we are going to visit this again, but with a launch! Check out the set up..
As you can see, I have a 2-liter bottle of Diet Coke strapped to a skate-board with nothing but duck tape. Can you see where I am going with this? The cardboard has no other function other than to elevate the bottle above the lip of the end of the skateboard.
With my friend Caleb to help me, he lifted the end of the skateboard and I unscrewed the top.
This way I can drop the Mentos in easier. With a 3-2-1, I dropped the Mentos into the soda. Caleb the dropped the skateboard and let it roll!
The beloved chemical reaction started to push the skateboard along the patio of my backyard.
The is how far it went…
Not very far at all. Maybe just a few inches. Why? Well, one reason, I believe, is because it was a new skateboard so the wheels were not broken in and so it may have been harder to get the board moving. Number two is that I think the reaction was not powerful enough…. time to bring in the geyser. You might remember the geyser from the last Diet Coke and Mentos experiment. This is an invention of Steve Spangler's and it attaches to the bottle and it narrows the hole where the soda can escape,t
hus, causing the soda to spurt out faster.
hus, causing the soda to spurt out faster.
I attached the geyser and repeated the process….. lets look at the results!
WOW! Now that was a cool reaction. Check out how far it went….
As you can see it when significantly farther than the rocket without the geyser.
This is simple proof that the second reaction was stronger than the first and was a great example of Newton’s Three Laws of Motion. How do they apply you might ask? I will leave that up to you to discover. And I have another challenge for you, how can you make it go even farther? Would changing the tube make a difference?
The WOW-rating I would give a 7, I would totally do it again to see if I can make it go farther! I just didn't have the resources to do that this time around.
I would like to thank my Grandparents for giving me the skateboard for my experiment!
That wraps up the chapter “Kitchen Chaos” and I have had a lot of fun!
