Slug Trap & Composter

PROBLEM: Slugs are damaging crops and farmers are trying to kill the slugs. We found a way to efficiently trap slugs without hurting them, so that farmers don’t have to worry about crop damage. SOLUTION: Our solution is eco-friendly, and harmless to all slugs used.The trap is created by recycled materials found in most households. For our slug trap we use a plastic water bottle. Slugs are attracted to the yeast at the bottom of the bottle, and they go into the trap. We have a barrier so they can’t fall and drown in the yeast. We recommend having a trap every twenty yards. You must dig a small hole and insert the bottle for use. We also recommend having the top of the trap at ground level. The slugs are then put into your compost. Slug can be used for composting because they are organic decomposers. Vermicomposting is using worms to aerate and help decompose compost, so in place of worms our slugs will digest raw or organic materials. When taking the composted material into the fields, we recommend checking the composted material to make sure there are no slugs inside of it. ***This prototype and solution were created in response to the research component of a robotics competition. Thirteen seventh graders in South Louisiana were challenged with finding an innovative solution to a problem with a way that humans and animals interact. The students initially found that slug slime had healing properties and wanted to find a way to capture slugs in farm plots and bottle the slug slime to sell at farmer's markets.