July 8, 2008

Mentos Geyser Explodes on Photography Blog

In our continuing quest to find interesting blogs and bloggers, we ran into Leah Simmers Photography Blog, where she was capturing her experience with Mentos and Diet Coke. Thanks to Leah for letting us share some her unique geyser pictures here. Check out Leah's full blog post here. And yes, that is the Geyser Tube she's using to launch that screaming geyser.

June 20, 2008

Kentucky Students Set New MENTOS Geyser Record

Not to be out-done by Europeans, students at Male High School in Louisville, KY, set off 300 more geysers than the previous record-breaking effort just a few months ago in Belgium. School officials thought exploding Diet Coke and MENTOS would be a great way for students to blow off a little steam before finals and celebrate a great school year. The students were recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the new official record holders with 1800 geysers. All proceeds from the event were donated to the Ronald McDonald House. Congrats to Male High School students... now who will be next in the race for a new geyser world record?

November 17, 2006

Geysers Galore - 700 Learning Experiences at NAEYC

The Mentos Geyser made history once again as the star attraction at the NAEYC 2006 Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. Over the rumble of the crowd in the exhibit hall, you could hear someone from the Spangler Science booth yell, "GEYSER!" followed by a few screams and cheers of excitement. The "geyser" was actually the eruption of a two-liter bottle of Diet Coke powered by Mentos. As soon as people approached the booth and saw the mountain of soda and the display of Mentos, they knew what could happen... but most people didn't believe that we would actually launch the geysers from behind the booth. Surprise! Instead of just launching the Diet Coke just for fun sake, we used each opportunity to deliver a quick science lesson and followed it up by putting one of our Geyser Tube Experiments in each of the teacher's hands. Out of the 11,000 people reported to be in attendance at the event, we personally handed out 7,000 Geyser Tube Experiments (which included a roll of Mentos). We even had a few guest "geyserists" take center stage in the booth and try their hand at a launch. This is not the first time these educators had seen or performed our Mentos Geyser which was featured on stage three years ago in Anaheim, California at the 2003 NAEYC Conference. One teacher commented, "We've been doing this experiment for the past three years, and it took the rest of the world this long to catch up!" (more...)

October 26, 2006

Grandma and Grandson Take Mentos to New Heights

I recently received an email from Mimi Sylvia and her grandson Scott. Mimi (she has been called that since her oldest granddaughter tried to say "grandma" and it came out "mimi") loves to teach science to her 10 grandkids and says she doesn't plan on growing up herself anytime soon. Every summer, Mimi Sylvia and her husband travel to Montana to visit their daughter and her family. Mimi Sylvia says they pack their car full of experiments and crafts. She loves to show the kids that science is fun. Mimi and Scotty tried the Mentos and Diet Coke experiment and WOW did they make a splash. Scotty outdid his two older sisters and brother. We were so impressed with the photo she sent, that we had to share! Keep aiming high, big guy!

July 17, 2006

Do Bubbles in Guiness Go Down?

... or is it an optical illusion? Richard Zare is a world-renowned chemist at Stanford University, and he has a particular fascination with bubbles. He recently showed why the bubbles actually go down the side of the glass when you first pull a pint of Guinness. This gentleman might have something to say about the Mentos reaction. Hmmm?