Items needed:
- 2 Empty Pizza Boxes
- 1 Full, Room Temp, Unopened Diet Coke 2-liter
- Aluminum
- Tape
- Spray Paint {Colors of your choice}
- 1 Package of Mint Flavored Mentos
**Let me preface this by pointing out one major error we made when making ours. This was a class project for our Homeschool Tutorial and I didn't have specific instructions. As you can see pictured below we used an empty 2 liter. We did not know at the time that it HAD to be a FULL UNOPENED DIET COKE 2-liter. So we ended up cutting a hole in the bottom and replacing it before setting it off.**
Take the bottom of your pizza box and wrap it in foil as a base for your volcano.
Place your FULL, UNOPENED, DIET COKE 2-Liter in the middle of the box.
Cut the rest of your pizza boxes into 4 large rectangles and "tepee" them around the 2-Liter.
You may have to cut the tops diagonally to get them to fit around the opening of the bottle.
There really is no right or wrong way to do this...it will be unseen so don't sweat what it looks like.
Just remember that you will need to be able to access the lid so don't build them too high above the opening.
Take long strips of foil and lay them length wise from the top of bottle down to the underside of your base.
I tucked mine over the pieces of box at the opening to create a "crater" effect.
Do this all the way around the box.
Use tape {we used packing tape..I'm sure Scotch would suffice} to hold down where your strips of foil are overlapping.
This just helps to secure any openings there may be.
Now you are ready to get your paint on.
We used brown first pretty much all over lightly.
Then we used black to represent the cooled lava around the bottom of a volcano.
Also around the mouth of the volcano to represent older eruptions.
You can see one of my strips of foil in this picture.
I had to go back and tape it down better to give it a more unified look.
Just be sure to cover up any silver you may still see.
Maggie then painted on fresh molten lava with an orange acrylic paint. {You can use whatever you choose}
I thought red would be better but she showed me pictures of freshly erupting volcanoes and sure enough, there was orange in it.
She used her brush to take the orange color down the cracks the foil naturally makes.
This helps give it such a realistic, dimensional look.
Again, try to paint over and silver you may have left.
This was our final product.
So darn easy.
We did not set ours off at home so I don't have pictures.
However, I am providing easy how-to instructions and a video from Mythbusters on the exact Science behind why this happens.
Steve Spangler Science gives a great walk through on how to drop your Mentos into the Coke with a rolled piece of paper.
He also sells a "Geyser Tube" that he invented just for this experiment.
Have fun and wear old clothes! :-)
"My every mortal breath, is Grace and nothing less"
