Cadence's Leprechaun Trap

For Cadence's 3rd grade class, the kids were all assigned to build a Leprechaun trap for St. Patrick's Day. They had to draw plans & turn them in as the first step of the assignment; then they had to build it & make it work properly. Finally, they had to add their own "flair" to make it special.

Cadence is a brainiac when it comes to this type of stuff. She's got an engineering mind like her dad. She came home & drew up her plans immediately. There was only one thing that stumped her & Trek was able to help her come to an educated conclusion as to how to make it work properly.

She got a big box & cut it to look like a house. She cut a door in the front of the house, & using plastic hooks, a wooden dowel, & rubber bands she was able to rig an automatic slamming door.

Inside the house she placed a soft Leprechaun bed with cotton pillow & a big bowl of gold coins to entice the leprechaun inside.

As the Leprechaun walks in, he trips over a rubber band & in turn sets off the rigged wiring causing the door to SLAM (& I mean SLAM) the door behind him. It slams so hard, I bet you could catch a mouse with this thing.

Then to add Cadence "flair" she painted the whole thing GREEN, added a "Home Sweet Home" sign & put flashing shamrock lights around the front. It was ADORABLE.

You can see the trip wire in the picture above. You barely touch that thing & the door slams shut HARD on you. I was amazed she could #1: come up with something like that on her own & #2: build it so tight that it almost hurts YOU when you "mess" with it.

We took a video showing how it works. I'll upload it later since I'm computer dumb & don't know how to do it on my own. I'll have Trek do it for me so you can see this thing in action. It's amazing.

Cadence set up the trap in her classroom & is hoping she "caught something." She'll know for sure when she returns to class after spring break in April. We'll see . . .