And while it may look simple, it's actually a very difficult engineering challenge to pull off.

As proof, if you Google "Jello Pool," you will either find bad CGI,

or a handful of videos of people who tried to do this, but it really didn't work out.

So today, we are going to answer possibly the longest standing question from my childhood:

What would it be like to actually belly flop in a pool of Jello?

But before we do that, I want to talk about what we

actually had to go through for the past 6 months to pull this off.

The idea of a Jello pool has been on my bucket list for over 4 years.

In fact, when Kevin from The Backyard Scientist and I made the 25 million Orbeez pool,

our first idea was to do a pool of Jello, but it's really hard.

Because if you've ever made Jello, you might recall

you first have to boil water, then mix in the powder,

and then you have to refrigerate it for it to actually get firm.

And that's easy enough to do for a small dish

but how do you boil and then refrigerate an entire pool?

This seemed like a very worthy engineering challenge.

So year at Thanksgiving, my brother and I came up with a plan

and then in the middle of winter, we started digging a hole in his backyard.

Then over the course of 2 months we set up a bunch of small-scale experiments

because we needed to answer questions like:

How much gelatin powder does it actually take to get to the ideal firmness?

And how hot, and then cold, does the mixture actually need to get

for the Jello chemical reaction to take place so it will actually get firm

From our experiments, we learned that the Jello always got firm as long as

the mixture got hotter than 160° Fahrenheit.

So we decided we could scale this up by using

6, 55 gallon drums with a custom propane burner underneath

and a spigot we welded to the sides, but more on that later.

So now we knew how we were going to heat it up

but how do you refrigerate an entire pool?

For that, we teamed up with Mother Nature and just picked

the perfect location and time of year.

We installed a thermometer and starting in January

we tracked the temperature in his backyard every night.

We needed refrigerator temperatures at night,

but not freezer temperatures, because that would freeze the jello

and our experiments showed that totally ruins it.

And so after looking at our data, plus historical

temperature plots, we knew we had about

a 3-week sweet spot window towards the end of April to pull this off.

Our goal is to have a Jello pool party

in his backyard, that would make even

Phineas and Ferb jealous.

So the plan was to start 7 days before the party,

and fill the pool with an average of 10 barrels every day.

That would give each layer a chance to get exposed to

the cold night air, to more efficiently get rid of the heat.

And so with that, first thing Saturday, a full week

before the party, [water splash] we got to work

♪ Faidherbe Square - ProleteR ♪

We didn't want to waste actual food, so this was just

water and gelatin powder and food coloring.

But there's no sugar.

♪ Faidherbe Square - ProleteR ♪

We intentionally placed our barrels much higher than

the pool, so when we're ready, we can use

the potential energy to move the Jello from the barrels

to the pool.

We had to tackle about a thousand other issues that

came up, that I won't bore you with, but

day by day, and layer by layer, the pool

began to fill up.

Because the Jello went in with so much heat energy,

we needed to remove before it could get firm,

in addition to using the cold night air, my

brother's neighbor, Nick, happened to have a spare swamp

cooler, in his shop.

So we kept that running over the top of the pool,

pretty much the whole week.

This gave us convection cooling, it's

the equivalent of rolling down a car window

for the pool, or like, when you blow

on the top of a hot cup of soup.

This constantly replaces the evaporating layer of air

right at the surface with fresh, cold air,

that will suck out the heat more efficiently.

And so, as we put in the final batch Friday night

with ominous weather

threatening to ruin the whole effort.

At this point, we had done all we could.

We were exhausted after a week

and I wasn't feeling super confident

because my specialty is more of mechanical things

and this project was more about chemistry and thermodynamics.

And I didn't want that lame "Jelly-Baff" stuff

people trying to pass off as Jello.

And so even if it didn't last long in the Sun,

I wanted to at least have the experience

of seeing even a single belly flop

on a smooth pool of actual Jello.

If this was gonna be a total failure,

it wouldn't be from lack of effort.

And so we woke up Saturday morning,

with a forecast for a warm sunny day

and we pulled off the tarp

to find a pool

filled with actual freaking Jello.

♪ Sappheiro - Falling ft. eSoreni ♪

By this point, word in the neighborhood

had definitely spread around

as to what we were up to.

And my brother asked if some of their friend's kids

could have first dibs.

And so with that, I'm happy to report

this is what it looks like to belly flop

in a pool of Jello.

♪ Sappheiro - Falling ft. eSoreni ♪

Not yet! (Wait, wait Adam)

♪ Pokemon in NYC ft. Missy - Andrew Applepie ♪

When I first got in myself,

it was closer to the middle of the day and one of the things we discovered was that

direct sunlight over time

had the effect of undoing some of the

solidness of the lower layers.

(Laughter)

When you go in it just feels-fills your nose

and like ears. It's a very surreal feeling

I'm just being like. Its kinda hard to move

but its just slimy and slippery

It actually feels really cool

We have some pool toys uhh... hidden underneath

Got it!

Wow!

It's unlike anything I mean it's like swimming in snot.

If that makes any sense?

But like a good snot!

To keep solid for even longer, if we were to do it again

We might put in a heat exchanger pipe system beneath the surface

sort of how like they freeze indoor ice-skating rinks.

And maybe use a little sugar

That's disgusting!

Now at this point you might be thinking "Why would anyone spend their

effort of 6 months of planning, and then a solid week of back-breaking effort just to make a stupid pool of Jello?"

And to that I say,

"Why do people go through the effort of climbing Mount Everest?

Why did Neil Armstrong go through the effort of stepping on the moon?

And why did Pam and Jim go through the effort of convincing Dwight, that Jim had always been Asian?"

Dwight: "This is Jim."

Sometimes, you don't do a thing because you should, but simply to prove that you can.

Now that my curiosity was fully satiated and on my ongoing quest to be the favorite uncle,

I told my nephews they can invite some of their friends over

And my brother's family, setup a neighborhood BBQ.

And at this point, after a lot of hours of belly flops, and bowling balls, and direct sunlight,

The Jello was pretty broken down

But that didn't stop us from setting up

a Jello pool slip-and-slide

♪ Pata Pata - Matt Chene ♪

And I love their sense of adventure but it was a bit of an "Uncle Fail Moment"

because apparently, none of them have ever used a slip-and-side

♪ Pata Pata - Matt Chene ♪

We didn't actually put any sugar in here so it's kinda disgusting so, we've got some real-

(Ominous Music)

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(American Patriotic Song)

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(Ending Title Music)

(Draining Noises)