On Monday 21 January, students went outdoors with Mr. Tomalin to try to see if the kinetic energy created by combining DIET COLA and MENTOS would power a rocket. Mr. Tomalin, an enthusiastic rocket maker, helped the children set up the bottles of soda, with discussions about the pressure created by the chemical reactions, hypotheses about bottle sizes, numbers of Mentos, flavours, the amount of fluid and, when the bottle was then thrown, the angle of impact. The students came up with several theories as to why some of the trials didn’t work and made suggestions for the next trial which Mr. Tomalin was happy to do. One of the bottles actually burst from the reaction and another literally blew its top! Mr. Thompson came out and joined the investigation as well, adding more ideas and suggestions to the mix. For the last few minutes, geysers were made.
