I worked on a project with Hannah this week. We had to design and implement a Leprechaun trap that she could assemble at school. We were constrained to using materials found at home and that could be assembled at school. We had two designs. The first, using an empty tissue box, was inspired by the raccoon traps in the book ‘Where the Red Fern Grows.’ The trapping idea was that we would put something shiny in it. This would attract the little fairy creature. When he tried to steal our treasure, his fist would be too big to pull out of the box and he would be trapped until Hannah let him out in exchange for all of his gold and a trip to the end of the rainbow. I was informed that Leprechaun’s are smarter than raccoons and that this probably would not work. I had to cme up with a plan be yesterday morning because *all* the other kids already had their materials at school. So using a box, a small block of wood, some string and shiny brass angle bracket we came up with this design:
This design uses a rather cool looking designer box. It is about the size of a shoe box and has a pink lid. there are fish designs on the outside and a label, frontside. The idea here is to turn the box upside down and prop one side of the box above the lid with a block of wood. There is a hole drilled in the wood so we can tie a string from it to a shiny brass angle bracket that (the Leprechaun will think it is gold) and put the bracket onto the lid. When the little fairy man would climbs in the trap to steal our shiny gold, Bam! The trap is triggered when he grabs the bait and the wood block falls out from under the box. The box will fall neatly onto the lid; sealing his fate and ensuring our retirement will be comfortable and well funded with rainbow gold. My favorite kind. Hannah assures me that the box is to heavy for him to lift. Once he springs the trap, voila, he will give us all his gold and a trip on the rainbow. It’s Hannah’s job to assemble the trap. I’ll get a picture of it this afternoon and can post the real thing. And here it is, in the wild:
The trap worked the first night. It effectiveness wore off in the following week.
