The sound of about 100 beeping eggs rang out of Emily Murphy Park Saturday afternoon where more than a dozen youths combed the grounds — marked off with police tape — for audible eggs designed just for them.
Edmonton police Const. Ryan Katchur didn’t want vision loss to hold children back from a good old-fashioned Easter egg hunt, so he called in the bomb unit to add a twist to a time-honoured tradition.
Katchur, who does “post-blast” forensic work for the crime scene investigation unit, said he pitched the idea of an inclusive Easter egg hunt to the Edmonton Police Foundation and bomb unit before teaming up with the Canadian National Institute for the Blind to make it happen.
What was the inspiration for the beeping eggs?
While the collaboration is a novel one for Edmonton, Katchur said the idea came from a similar effort in the U.S. called The Rachel Project.
According to the International Association of Bomb Technicians and Investigators (IABTI), a member named David Hyche created a similarly accessible Easter egg hunt in Birmingham, Ala., in 2005 for his daughter Rachel, a two-year-old living with blindness.
Who was involved in making the audible eggs?
The IABTI said Hyche sought help from the local bomb squad and other police organizations to construct the audible eggs used in the hunt.
The effort also sought assistance from the Cyber Eagles, a teen robotics club in Strathcona County that helped 3D-print the egg shells and work with the bomb unit to assemble the devices, which children in the park Saturday exchanged for candy.
What does the future hold for the event?
The CNIB had done Easter events before but not with the bomb squad to make accessible eggs. The police foundation hopes to make the event an annual tradition.
