I came upon the following video of an exploding gummy bear and after reading the details of the “experiment” they were conducting… I realized I had done the exact same experiment in high school… Chemistry Honors with Ms. Lei. I specifically remember Bryan was my partner and for our final lab/project we picked something out of the Anarchist’s Cookbook (all Bryan’s idea).

[youtube]MUensqImzXM[/youtube]

We didn’t use molten potassium chlorate but did something similar with some potassium compound, sugar (aka the gummy bear) and something like 18M (= molar .. you remember moles don’t you??) hydrochloric acid (HCL). Now that I think about it, it seems odd that they would let two high school juniors play with 18M HCL… that stuff is really strong. Anyway, by adding the HCL to our mixture of unsuspecting white powder… we got the same reaction as seen above. Luckily, we wore gloves and had this all in a controlled vent area. Afterward, Ms. Lei did give us a disapproving look not to mention a pretty crappy grade on our report. Oh well.