fandomhigh | Shop Class: [1/16]

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Shop Class: [1/16]

As the students enter into the class room they find that, for once, it looks like a normal shop room. Except for the fact that Mac's desk is laden down with a whole bunch of sugary snacks (Cookies, Twinkies, etc.) and shiny objects.

Mac cheerfully spends the first part of class going over the use and safety of all the shop equipment before talking about the assignment.

"Even though we had a extermination team come through here last week, there's always a chance that there are still some gremlins around or that they will come back. So today's assignment is to build a device that will entice and trap a gremlin in a humane fashion."

"All the materials you would need to make such a device are located in the supply room. For bait feel free to use any of the snacks or shiny objects on my desk."

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Have at it folks...

Use the shop room or talk to Mac

Questions? Comments? Concerns?

Kawalsky went with what he knew about traps. He retrieved some wire mesh and timber from the supply room. He created a rectangular prism frame. Wire mesh was then worked around all four long rectangular sides and one of the square sides and stapled into place.

Separate to the cage, Kawalsky worked on a thin flap door covered in the same wire mesh to attach on hinges to the front of the cage. He fixed a piece of aluminium into the cage, attached to the sides as the pressure pad. He then rigged it so that the pressure pad was connected to the front flap by fishing line. After all that was set up, he tested the pressure pad. Pressure on the pad led to the flap falling shut, but not staying in place.

Fifteen minutes later, both the cage frame and the flap had a makeshift latch system. It wasn't foolproof, but it would do the job most of the time. He tested it again, but it didn't work. He fiddled with the latch, tried it again and got it to work. Kawalsky then retrieved cookies from the table and put it into place as bait. Cookies worked best, in his opinion, because the smell was the strongest of all the sugary snacks.

He reopened the trap and set it into place, ready for grading.

John thinks about this assignment for a few minutes.

Deciding to be a little inventive, John retrieves two large, old tires from around the workshop. He sets them on top of each other, making sure the height is enough that a gremlin can't jump over it and the weight is enough that they couldn't push them over. It tested well.

Then, John retrieves a large piece of wood and sets it over the tires. He cuts a large square out of the wood and fashions a makeshift latch onto one of the open sides. Then, he reattaches the previously cut piece of food. Instant swining wood square.

Now, the bait. Grabbing several sweet, John places them on the piece of wood and ties a string to each sugary treat. He runs that line to the latch on the wood.

Now, if it works correctly, a gremlin will smell the sweet treat, climb up using the grooves of the tires and the wood, grab the treat, release the latch and fall into the tires.

Mac gave the trap a quick test and nodded satisfied. "Looks good Kawalsky."

"Nice job Crichton. Looks good."

Yuffie sat, still sniffling slightly but much more up-beat then she was, say, friday. She finally got up and found found a metal pipe with a large diamater, a piece of heavy duty wood, and some fishing line. After a moment's thought she found a latch that would shut by just force alone, some wire, and some cardboard, along with some of the sugary snacks.

She first cut the wood into covers for both sides of the pipe, leaving a bit of a natch on the side of one of the wood circles she now had. She then attached a square of the cardboard to one end of the fishing wire. She rigged the wire to make a little loop, and attached inside the pipe, close to one of the openings. The fishing line was run through the wire loop so that the cardboard square was inside the pipe.

The notched wood circle was used to seal off one end of the pipe, the fishing line goging through the notch. Yuffie then attached the other circle of wood to the other end with hinges, and attached the latch she had found a couple of times til she was sastified that the weight of the falling cover would usually latch the cover strongly. She then weighted down the cardboard square with food and tied the hinged cover back with the fishing line.

When she was done Yuffie had a pipe with an end closed off. The food on the cardboard was the bait. When the gremlin came in the pipe and took the food the hinged cover would fall down, latching and trapping the gremlin inside.

Sam thought about the assignment and sketched it out. Still, the sugary snacks didn't seem like the most effective lure for the trap. "Mac? Okay if I go get something that I think might work better than the snacks?"

She munched on a cookie.

Mac looked over the trap and sprung it just to test it out. "Mighty fine trap there, Yuffie."

"Whatever you want to use for bait is fine by me, Carter."

"Cool, thanks." She left the room and jogged back to the dorms.

Sam returned about fifteen minutes later, borrowed socks (http://www.livejournal.com/users/oatmanspatient/34917.html) in hand.

"Got 'em," she waved them around her head, then put them on the bench while she worked.

She took a very long piece of acrylic, and measured it out into intervals. She drilled a few holes into the sides, then heated the acrylic at those measured points and folded it to form a box with a lid, but an open door and a round hole in the back.

She next rigged a door from a piece of metal and fashioned a small pulley system.

Inside the box, she hung two pairs of socks, and attached one end to the pulley and the other end to the door. Sam checked it to make sure that pulling on the socks would close the door immediately, then she fashioned a bar that would drop as soon as the door closed, from the action of the door falling.

She then put a small box fan behind the trap and looked at Mac. "When I turn the fan on, it'll send the smell of the socks thoughout the room and hopefully attract any gremlins. When then go to attack the socks, it'll pull the door closed using the pulley and it'll lock behind them."

Mac tested the box and it functioned properly. "Dirty socks, huh? I guess that just gives me added incentive to get my laundry done."

"These are very special dirty socks," Sam grinned. "They belong to the guy who's been bitten four times so far. They either really like him, or they've got it in for him."

"Really? Huh. Never thought they'd have a vendetta against someone in particular."

[OOC: *dies*]

Sam shrugged one shoulder. "He organized a gremlin baseball game. Using live gremlins. There could be bitterness there."

Nadia thought for a moment, watching the other students set up elaborate latch and swinging door combinations. She had absolutely no idea how to go about getting started on something like that, but she did have another idea.

There was one possible flaw.

She raised her hand. "Mac, how intelligent are gremlins?"

"Ummm... Not entirely sure. I'm not an expert on the subject. Apparently they like sweet treats and dirty socks," Marty replied. "Other than that? I know to stay the heck away from them."

"That would do it, I guess," Mac said with a little smirk.

Nadia nodded. That would make it a bit more difficult to plan. She thought over what she did know about the gremlins.

1) They like to bite people, especially Marty
2) They could sing, if Xander was to be believed. And why would he make that up?
3) They, as Mac had said, liked sugary snacks and dirty socks.
4) She'd read they were afraid of crinkly noises, but she couldn't rely on that information, since she didn't know who had put up the posters. The same was true about the being repelled or attracted by certain materials, like wool or cotton

and most importantly:

5) They were smart enough to have a sense of irony regarding attacking a Gremlin Bite Support Group. On the other hand, they were foolish enough to assume that the people at the Gremlin Bite Support Group wouldn't be armed in preparation for imending irony. Of course, the people at the Gremlin Bite Support Group were foolish enough not to be armed. . . .

Ah, what the hell, she didn't have any better ideas. She raised her hand. "Anyone know how big a gremlin's hand is?"

Mac pulls out some security camera photos of the common room from last Wednesday nights debacle. "This should give you some idea.

{ooc: you is smart! I'd just e-mailed monsta and was afraid we'd have to wait on her answer.}

[OOC: And I even used the right character name this time! *is proud*]

Xander surveyed the available resources, looked at the work that had obviously gone into everyone else's projects, and... shrugged.

He retrieved an empty cardboard box from behind the recycling bin, refolded it into its proper shape, and turned it upside down. Then he grabbed a sawed-off piece of rebar, propped one corner of the box up with it, tied a long piece of twine to end of the rebar nearest the floor, carefully stacked a couple rolls of duct tape on top the base of the box to weight it down, and placed an opened Twinkie under the box.

Then he grabbed the end of the twine and moved away from the trap, whistling nochalantly. Nope, not waitin' around for any gremlins here, nuh-uh.

Hey, if it worked for Smarty A. Dingo...

{TBC}

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Shop Class: [1/16]

Assignment: [1/16]

Open Shop/Office Hours: [1/16]

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