Orlando Science Center: Mess Fest cleans up with foam, facts

Things should get sloppy and scientific at Mess Fest, an upcoming two-day event at Orlando Science Center. Activities splattered across the museum will feature foam, liquid nitrogen, homemade slime, STEM knowledge and the explosive combo of Diet Coke and Mentos.

Oh, and expect elephant toothpaste moments. Don’t try those at home, kids. The event at Orlando’s Loch Haven Park is May 13-14.

“We are going to have fun, be very messy, but we’re also going to learn a lot,” said Zachary Mailhot, science program interpreter.

In an activity known as the splat-a-pult, participants will use a slingshot contraption to launch tempera paint-soaked squishy balls at targets projected onto a blank canvas.

Shooters “slowly figure out that if they pull back farther they add more power, that they go straighter, there’s less arc … so they get a lot of that physics simulation to kind of rapidly go through their brain as well as getting nice and messy and learning a little bit about polymers,” Mailhot said.

“Our team will be kind of explaining the science behind why rubber bands stretch and then snap back into their original shape,” he said.

In the gaming element on the canvas, large stationary targets earn low points and the smaller, moving objects land more points for the launcher. It gets competitive.

“It’s all about experimentation with the potential energy they’re putting into the slingshot to the result they’re getting out,” said Xander Davis, public programs coordinator at Orlando Science Center.

“You could talk to them about that all day and it’s going to go in one ear and out the other,” Davis said. “When you actually get hands-on you get to use those concepts for yourself and learn to achieve a goal that you want to – which is beating your friend – then the learnings happen without them even realizing that it’s happening.”

The event is distributed across multiple Mess Zones, including the main Mess Hall that covers two exhibit areas on the museum’s second level. Some of the messier Mess Fest activities will be on the fourth-floor terrace, weather permitting.

It will be that outdoor setting for demonstrations such as elephant toothpaste, Diet Coke and Mentos and the foam explosion that goes several feet into the air. The latter is achieved with boiling water poured into liquid nitrogen, which results in a dramatic, sudsy covering for the pouring person, a science center employee with protective garb.

Elephant toothpaste is a fanciful name for a mixture of hydrogen peroxide, sodium iodide, detergent and food coloring. It’s more of a slow, expanding, steaming mushroom-head experience. The mixture of Mentos mints and soda is like a geyser in a bottle. The science behind all of it is explained by staff members.

Observers are kept a safe distance from experiments, and while there are opportunities for folks to get their hands wet with the science, that’s optional. And anything that splatters on clothes washes right out in the laundry, the science center says.

Mess Fest also will feature less combustive activities such as whipping up a batch of slime and creating a painting with a pendulum. New this year is an offering in the Hive area in which participants dismantle old technology.

“We’re going to have a tech take-apart where we get to learn the mess behind technology and the engineering design process behind it by reverse engineering and taking things apart that have been e-waste recycled,” Mailhot said.

“It’s a little bit more of a quieter space,” he said. “As you can imagine, inviting children to actually be messy for once, there is a lot of energy in the building. So if you want a place to mellow down, the Hive is a great place.”

Mess Fest is included with regular Orlando Science Center admission. A one-day admission is $24 ($18 for ages 2 to 11). Event hours are 11 a.m.-4 p.m. For tickets or more information, go to OSC.org.