Sean Moncrieff is the host of the Afternoon Show on Newtalk 106-108 fm in Ireland. This nationally syndicated show features news stories ranging from the serious to the zany… maybe that’s why they called. While waiting for my segment, I listened to the show and quickly realized how much I want to speak again in Ireland. I first lectured at the Irish Science Teachers Association in 1997 and again in 2000. I shared a few science demos and they taught me the finer points of drinking lots of Irish beer. Here’s my interview with Moncrieff.

 

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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?

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There are literally thousands of online videos featuring the Mentos Geyser experiment, but this video is worth a few minutes of your time. It’s a first-class video produced by Mr. Delos Santos and his third grade class at Stone Ranch Elementary in San Diego, California.

Mr. Santos says that the project first started out as just a science experiment for the unit on Matter, but quickly grew into a much bigger project. But it’s not just a video, the class created their own “Fizz”ical Science website. “The largest challenge in producing a project like this is being able to engage all students in the digital learning process. Teaching them the proper technique and how to convey their message in a clear and systematic way was another challenging aspect of our project,” according to Mr. Santos.

Here’s the best part… The video has been nominated for an iVIE (Innovative Video in Education) Award! The award ceremony will take place on May 20th, and we’ll keep you posted.

BUT… We held our own screening earlier today and our staff would like to present Mr. Delos Santos’ third grade class with our own video award - a $100 gift certificate from SteveSpanglerScience.com Congratulations to the third graders from Stone Ranch Elementary!

…and nice job Mr. Delos Santos - the gift certificate is on its way.

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The crew from Modern Marvels on the History Channel visited our science lab back in July to play with some really cold science experiments. In other words, the liquid nitrogen was flowing and the onions were exploding! Mark your calendars… Modern Marvels: Deep Freeze will officially be airing on the History Channel on Tuesday, September 25th at 8pm EST.

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Tune into Food Network’s Unwrapped to get a peek inside the Spangler Science labs as Steve shares the science behind the Mentos Geyser all of that exploding soda. Back in December, I mentioned that a crew from Unwrapped on the Food Network wanted to get the real scoop on the popular Mentos and soda reaction. The crew spent an entire day grabbing the reaction from every angle and trying to understand how all of those tiny bubbles produce such a huge fountain of soda. The episode is scheduled to air on September 24, 2007. Consult your local listing for time and channel.

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If you’ve ever enjoyed wearing a bottle of Diet Coke after dropping in a roll of Mentos, you know that the reaction is immediate. I’ve always thought that it would be cool if you could slow everything down and really look at the reaction. I shared the idea with our friends at Mentos and they shot this slow motion video. There are a few frames where you can see the carbon dioxide gas coming out of solution being attracted to the tiny pits (nucleation sites) on the surface of the mint. For the tech-nerds in the audience, a Phantom 9.0 high-speed digital camera from Vision Research (2,000 frames per second) captured the slow-motion footage.

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Thousands of science teachers found their way to St. Louis for the 2007 National Science Teachers Association convention, and we wanted to make sure they had something to take back to their students. So, we loaded our trucks with experiments and products from the website along with 5,000 rolls of MENTOS stuffed into plastic test tubes and headed for the Gateway City. We were fortunate to have 14 teacher ambassadors from the Hands-on Science Institute join us in the booth to each share their favorite science activities. Aside from 500 bottles of Diet Coke and a mountain of MENTOS, all eyes were on the 18 foot tall soda eruption chamber. We were demonstrating the new Geyser Tube by triggering a MENTOS geyser as fast as we could set-up a launch (about every 2-3 minutes for 3 full days). At the end of the convention, the soda was gone, the rolls of MENTOS were in the hands of 5,000 teachers, the truck was cleaned out… and we all had a blast. It’s back to the classroom for the 14 ambassadors to start working on cool stuff for next year’s NSTA in Boston.

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We’re excited about the official launch of our new Spangler Geyser Tube. Think of it as the perfect Mentos loading device to trigger a 30 foot geyser of soda. Just load the Mentos candies into the tube, lock the nozzle in place and pull the pin. Okay, it’s bes

t to pull the pin and then run away. The Mentos drop into the bottle triggering the reaction and the powerful soda geyser comes shooting out the top with enough pressure to reach an incredible height of 30 feet. Onlookers scream, “Do it again!”… and you do.

The Geyser Tube retails for $4.95 and is currently only available at www.SteveSpanglerScience.com However, as a result of our licensing agreement with the maker of Mentos (Perfetti Van Melle), the Spangler Geyser Tube will be released into mass market distribution (all of the major toy stores, print catalogs and online stores) in June 2007.

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I’ve always been a fan of Apple Computers (now Apple Inc.). From my very first Apple IIe to my current MacBook Pro (and about a dozen in between), these computers and products have helped me and our employees to do some very amazing things over the years. That’s why it was an honor to be invited to visit Apple last week and speak with a group of their employees about my experiences running our business on a Mac platform. During my visit, we also taped some online seminars that will be posted on apple.com/business in the near future.

Okay, the secret is out… we’ve been in business for 16 years and never had a PC in the office. Read the rest of this entry »

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After two straight days of demonstrating the Spangler Geyser Tube at the New York Toy Fair, my voice is gone. All in all, we launched over 500 two-liter bottles of diet soda in the giant plastic tubes to demonstrate how a science experiment turned into an Internet sensation… which lead to the creation of a new toy.

Prior to my voice disappearing, I spoke with Greg Sandoval, Staff Writer at CNET News.com, about toying with the Mentos and Diet Coke experiment.

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