Tag - Perfetti Van Melle

Mentos Geyser Car Makes Splash at Toy Fair

We are showing our new Mentos® Geyser Rocket Car at the New York Toy Fair this week. Strap the car to a bottle of soda, like Diet Coke, drop in some Mentos® and let it take off. It goes fast and can reach speeds of up to 35 miles per hour and travel about 150 feet, so make sure you watch for speed traps if out in the neighborhood. The Rocket Car will be available to purchase this summer.

Science teachers have been doing the soda and mint experiment for years and years, but the original method used Wintergreen Lifesavers. When the manufacturer of the candies changed the diameter making them larger than the opening of the 2-liter bottle, teachers went looking for a substitute. MENTOS® candy did the trick, and proved to be the perfect candy to mix with the carbonated soda. For more information on the Mentos/soda reaction, read our experiment and watch the video that started the craze back in 2005.

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!”

Spangler Signs Deal with Mentos for New Geyser Tube Toys

We’re excited to announce the partnership between Steve Spangler Science and Mentos – actually the company who owns the Mentos brand Perfetti VanMelle USA. For the past six months, our Mentos mad scientists and a number of our Spangler Science teacher ambassadors from across the country have been working on new contraptions that produce the best geysers you’ve ever seen. Geyser Tube toys and science kits will be released in the next eight months and will be available in toys stores (yes, the big ones) nationwide.

Here’s the official press release…

December 1, 2006
DENVER, COLORADO – Over a million viewers tune in each week to see what cool science experiment Steve Spangler has up his sleeve. He shoots potatoes, makes toilet paper fly and turns two-liter bottles of soda into giant geysers all in the name of getting people of all ages turned onto science. The now famous Mentos and Diet Coke experiment turned into one of the most viral marketing campaigns in the history of the Internet. Just drop an unwrapped roll of Mentos into a freshly opened two-liter bottle of soda and stand back. The pop becomes a geyser of foam guaranteed to make onlookers cheer wildly and run away.

Now

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