2.       Place the bottle of room temperature Diet coke outside on a flat surface at the base of a wall of a building. 

3.      Set up camera so it is at the correct height to videotape the experiment. 

4.       Open the cap of the Diet coke bottle. 

5.      Place the tube (rolled up index card) on the flat index card.

6.      Put two Mentos into the tube and the flat index card underneath so the Mentos do not fall out. 

7.       Turn the camera’s video recording on. 

8.      Place the flat index card and tube with Mentos on top of the Diet Coke bottle, making sure the tube is right above the bottle opening. Pull out the index card so the Mentos drop into the bottle.  Step back from the bottle. 

9.      When the Diet Coke stops erupting, turn camera off.

10.  Take away the bottle of Diet Coke. 

11.  Pour out some Diet Coke in the cup. Take the thermometer and measure the temperature of the Diet Coke.  

12.  Pour the Diet Coke in the cup back into the bottle.

13.  Take the measuring tape and measure how much Diet Coke is left in the bottle.

14.  Pour the Diet Coke into a measuring cup and measure the volume of the Diet Coke that is left in the bottle after the eruption. 

15.  Repeat this exact same process with the warm Diet Coke and then again with the cold Diet Coke. 

16.  Watch the videos of the three eruptions to see how high the eruption was for the room temperature Diet Coke, the warm Diet Coke, and the cold Diet Coke against the building wall. 

17.  Estimate the height of each eruption by measuring the building wall with a tape measure. 

18.  Recycle the empty plastic bottles of Diet Coke.

 

One problem encountered when doing this experiment was getting all the Mentos into the bottle. Originally the idea was to drop 4 Mentos into the bottle of Diet Coke, but the eruption occurred so fast that only 2 Mentos dropped in and it was impossible to drop in the other 2. So, the experiment’s design was changed to only have 2 Mentos dropped into each bottle of Diet Coke, instead of 4. If I had to repeat the experiment in the future, I would design a better tube so all 4 Mentos would drop into the Diet Coke bottle. Now that I have done this experiment, I would like to know what would happen if you tried this experiment with other kinds of sodas. For example I would compare the physical reaction of Mentos to Pepsi, Mr. Pepper, Orange Fanta, Sprite, Coca Cola, and 7-Up.