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Subscribe to RSSThe masterminds behind the Mentos/Coke geysers are back, and this time they're in 3-D!
They're also harnessing the chemical reaction between Mentos mint candy and Coke Zero soda pop to send a rocket car rolling out of a hangar, to a distance mark of 221 feet. EepyBird's Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz made the Mentos/Coke combination famous four years ago when they combined the ingredients to create increasingly ornate fountain displays. Since then, the stunt has generated loads of viral buzz - and even a scientific paper explaining why the combination sets off so much fizz. (It has to do with the sudden mixture of ingredients as well as the bubble-stimulating surface of the mints.)
For "Experiment #321," Grobe and Voltz built a three-wheeled bike-trailer contraption with 108 two-liter bottles of Coke Zero and 648 Mentos tablets. Their team brought the vehicle to a blimp hangar in Tustin, Calif., pulled a lever to fire up the fountains, and let the CO2 spray push the darn thing across the concrete. Grobe and Voltz celebrated the end of the experiment by clinking champagne glasses filled with Coke Zero.
This video sets a new standard for technique: It was directed by Rob Cohen of "The Fast and the Furious" - which led Grobe to joke that their latest effort should be called "The Fizz and the Furious." Moreover, it was made available in 2-D as well as 3-D.
So what's next? According to The Orange County Register, the Maine-based team is heading to Germany for a record-setting display of 2,000 Mentos/Coke geysers. Why do these things? Not because they are easy, but because they are hard. "We're really looking for the limits of what's possible," Grobe told the Register.
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Amazing. Our energy problems solved. Why did no one else think of this?
This is a wasteful and useless demonstration.
It's great fun. Get over yourself!
Get a life
i agree...., nothing like saying "i'm metaded in that special way i guess... but i guess if coke and metoes have nothing better to blow $ on outside of stupidity, so be it, just remember when you buy your next coke, or mentoes, why the price is the way it is....lol (dont drink coke)!
I agree also. Why waste a bunch of money, film, time and effort, on putting together this kind of idiotic thing? Are we in grammar school? Now there are people wasting their time looking at this sh*t. OK, Mentos & Diet Coke c. 1999: "oooh, how 'bout that!" Mentos & Coke c. 2006: "oh, I've seen this bfore, but it's cool how it looks like the fountains at the belagio." Mentos & Coke now: "Wow, I'm shocked digg allowed me to be directed to content on msn. Did they mistake me for the kind of f*cktard that thinks this will still be amusing?" Perhaps the kind that recognizes that somewhere in the neighborhood of $60K was spent to make and market this nonsense; the amount of money that four poor families could live on for a year. Enjoy... douchebags.
221 ft and 3 comments... Epic Fail...
With all the bad news I've read, this was a delightful break! Just the kind of light hearted entertanment needed during a busy day. A waste of time? Yes, but so is anything, almost from Hollywood, Bollywood or anywhere else such as that. I beleive they have their usefulness as well.
Sorry to be a nitpicker, but, chemical reaction? Nope. Just a physical change - the rapid release of the CO2 dissolved under pressure in the coke.
Even the title of the scientific paper cited in the article is "Diet Coke and Mentos: What is really behind this physial reaction?"
If you want to be nit picky, the presence of CO2 in the water causes the formation of carbonic acid and the soda becomes pretty acidic. When the dissolved CO2 is released, the carbonic acid turns back into CO2 and the pH increases.
yea, you get the same reaction when you add anything with a base mix, like tums or rolaides, or even those little sweet tarts to any soda.... nothing new to see here folks....lol...move along.....
The last 200 ft, all I was able to see was the guy sitting on the bicycle... not the back of the contraption were the propellant was to have been coming out pushing the vehicle.
So thumbs down. Either your camera crew are complete incompetents, or they were slight of hand trying to not show Mr. Blue shirt pushing from behind.
This might work in the water were the water could provide some resistance to some sort of boat.
it didnt matter, you wouldnt have seen anything coming out of the back. The lol "rocket car", was pushed forward from the pressure of contained gas from the coke/ mentoes, with a sudden release that sent it forward, once it was far enough away, inches to maybe a foot, there was no pressure left, and it basically was out of steam.
Basic science, however, the pressure releasd, i think you were hoping for was to be like the old type water rockets, or like a ballon...not possible, because if you watch when they 1st launch it, you can see the soda is already near fizz'd out.
I thought the title read "rocket car runs on meth and coke". Makes more sense. LOL.
Next they are going to water our crops with Mountain Dew.
Or Gatorade like in the movie "Idiocracy".
Coke and Mentos is fun .. but sticky :)
I guessing each bottle was at about 20psi when the mentos mix with the coke ....
Why not try 120psi or 180psi from a bottle with water, bubble bath and compressed air ... and who needs a man in a white jacket when you have remote control :)
no need to refill with coke, just refill with water :) 221ft from 100 bottles is not bad, but 300+feet from 3 bottles is more like it :) See the video here
http://wrocket.hampson.net.au/?p=1018
-todd-
HHWRSA
What a bunch of kill-joy posters. It was something 'fun'....do you all remember fun?
Next, the team will head to Florida and shoot for the moon.
i wish them good luck with that, and getting more than 2" off the ground....lol
i know some people are going it was fun (funny), but actually happend to REAL fun (funny)? This is kind of like a bad tom greene movie, like freddie got fingerd or some thing...
Rocket car?, i was exspecting a bit more of a show, but when the uncoverd the little "bike" , i knew i was in for a major dissapointment. kinda made more benifit of my time really when i think about it, writing a negative comment than i did watching the clip.... now thats sad.
BTW those are margarita glasses, NOT champagne glasses....DUR.
I am amazed at how ignorant the writers for national pubs are these days.
On the other hand, there is the proverbial rocket in his pocket?
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/jimmy-don-clyde-soldier-and-accidental-porn-star/
lol....chow down 6 mentoes, and slam some coke as fast as you can....
They look like margarita glasses to me.
Their propulsion system was highly inefficient. Rather than allowing so many channels for the gas to vent, they should have reinforced the bottles with duct tape and used joints to reduce the number of outlets. They also should have capped the PVC pipes and drilled funnel taps into them, to better direct the propulsive spray. By forcing more of the pressurized gas into fewer outlets of a reduced size, the amount of force would increase and the propulsion system would retain a higher pressure for a longer period of time. Think of how the water stream reacts when you place your thumb over the end of a garden hose--pressure increases and the water travels a greater distance.
More than anything else, I think that this is a harbinger of the day sometime in the not so distant future when the Augustine Commission meets again to survey the fruit of their labors and then declares, "Mission Accomplished!" . . .
And while one might expect that the so-called "state of the art" in the commercial space travel sector has progressed a bit beyond using Coke Zero and Mentos for rocket propellants, it is more consistent with the concept of using an "over-thruster" and a trolley a la "The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the Eighth Dimension" than anything resembling an actual spaceship capable of making successful roundtrips to the Moon and Mars . . .
Of course, based on recent events one might guess that the Augustine Commission has shifted its focus to providing "expert" advice to BP on various strategies for containing the biggest environmental disaster in the history of our great nation, where the overall strategy continues to be to try every goofy idea at least twice . . .
On the other hand, the first part of the Coke Zero and Mentos "rocket" video was interesting, but the last part was a bit anticlimactic, really . . .
Really!
If they modified the rules a tiny bit--which should be easy to do, since there are no official rules for this type of thing--then there should be a way to use just a few but much larger containers for the Coke Zero and to devise a way to release a larger quantity of Mentos inside the sealed containers, which with a better and much lighter vehicle might be quite impressive, since if the vehicle additionally had wings, it could fly for a while, which is fabulous . . .
Fabulous!
Coke zero does not have as much flavors as coke