Hmm.. it does make more sense that the fire extinguisher is important somehow - he doesn't pick it up accidentally. I always thought that a CO2 fire extinguisher had pressurized LIQUID CO2 in it, that would just blend with the atmosphere when released. I did more searching, and it turns out this is true, but I found several youtube videos showing how you can "make dry ice" by using a CO2 fire extinguisher, so that is probably what Mac was supposed to have done (even though we don't see the bag that you would need). And yes, it would start making "smoke" (vapor) immediately, ESPECIALLY if he added the vinegar to it in the kitchen - not to mention that he shouldn't have put the box in the bucket along with it. But dry ice "smoke" flows down, and stays near the floor, so I suppose the point of the foamy vinegar/baking soda reaction was to make it more smoky and airborne.Juliette wrote: ↑Fri May 04, 2018 10:24 am
So to me the experiment is made of vinegar and dry ice (which is what you can find inside the fire extinguisher!) which he put in the bucket in the kitchen, to which he adds baking soda at the moment he needs to create the smoke
Dry ice is actually solid CO2 at an extremely low temperature and goes straight from solid to gas at ambient temperature, therefore creating smoke.
We have another flaw here since it should have been slightly smoking right from the moment it was taken out of the fire extinguisher
Since Mac wants lots of smoke, he combines two smoking elements: the dry ice and the baking soda+vinegar, and the three elements together smoke a lot and enough to allow them to escape
In short, this MacGyverism is made of vinegar, baking soda and dry ice
In any case, I think you are right, the smokescreen was meant to be created with vinegar, baking soda, and CO2 from the fire extinguisher. I suppose the question would be, was it just bad editing, or did they intentionally cut out all the other steps because of timing, or was it a deliberate plan to "leave out one ingredient" as they often did for safety so that kids at home would not start playing around with fire extinguishers? I'm thinking perhaps the latter - in the days before you could just google it and follow step-by-step instructions on youtube.
But thank you! I'll include the three ingredients in the MacGyverism section.
Kate