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Monday, February 4, 2013

Homeschooling Fun: Building a Boobytrap


If you're anything like me, your knowledge of boobytraps consists of childhood memories of watching The Goonies and Indiana Jones. (if you're a little younger, maybe Home Alone is a better example)

Luke is particularly interested in booby traps, and likes to set them to catch all the potential robbers that might be entering our home. (it's less of a paranoia thing, and more of a creative hero thing)

I was surprised to see that a quick Amazon search for boobytraps (for kids) resulted in some disturbing returns. (everything from fake boobies to REAL boobytraps...like bombs and such...yikes)

After some basic web searches we yielded some slightly more helpful (though not THAT much) images of what is called a simple Tiger Trap. (It's one small step up from the bucket of water on the door gag)


It's basically a simple pulley system, though ours is pretty crude...consisting of tape, a tape holder, a plastic container (filled with ants from the Ants in Your Pants game) and string.


One end of the string is taped to the ceiling, then to a container (open end facing away from the tape on the ceiling), then run the string through a tube that is hooked to the ceiling, and secure the string to the door in such a way that when the door is opened the string will detach and the weight of the container will pull itself down and dump it's contents on the the offending door-walker-inner.

Get it? Simple. Realistically it took us a few tries to get this done...all of them are on video of course. Our first try was a complete failure. Our second was successful. Our third was a failure again. This is a good thing, I promise. Kids need a little failure so that they learn that success for effort and hard work feels GREAT. Don't be afraid to let your kids fail! (how else will they learn?!) AND, don't step in to fix it...let them figure it out...that is after all THE POINT!


I think we've begun down a dangerous road of one-upmanship.

The last man standing wins...(insert evil laugh here)

Isn't homeschooling THE BEST?!?!

No plastic ants were harmed in the making of this boobytrap, but my hanging wall lantern (I'm sad to say) did not survive our crazy antics.


3 comments:

Heather said...

Did you say video?? I gotta see this!

Unknown said...

I would have posted it here, but somehow I can't upload video to blogger anymore...very disappointing! But I'll post it elsewhere for you...wink.

Unknown said...

EAT THAT BLOGGER! I figured out how to put video up again! YAY!

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