Around this time of year, students may find small and colorful, clay gnomes hidden behind doors, in bathroom stalls, and at the bottoms of staircases.

The PHS ceramics classes have been making gnomes every year to hide around the school as a benign prank.

But this year that will not be happening. While ceramics teacher Susan Simonds will still continue the tradition of the gnome project, she has decided to change it this year.

“Instead of doing the gnomes, which celebrate the coming of spring, I’ve decided this year that we would kind of mix our cultural heritages and honor the terra cotta warriors and also give them some gnome-like qualities with a combination, a blending of cultures,” she said.

The gnomes that Simonds has seen so far this year have been similar to the traditional gnomes, but with war-like qualities, including weapons, armor, and brighter colors.

The original terra cotta warriors were made 2,000 years ago to defend the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emporer of China. Tourists can see them in the province of Xi’an, in China. Though they lack color now, they were originally very colorful; Simonds is trying to get her students to capture the vibrant colors.

Students started the project at the beginning of the semester and will be displaying the gnomes as an army at the end of February, rather than hiding them like they usually do.

“We’re not hiding them quite the same way as the gnomes because they just end up getting destroyed and vandalized, which is too bad,” Simonds said. “So I think we’ll display them as an army and just do photo-shoots of them.”

Simonds had planned the change in this project at the beginning of the year, but discovered recently that the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco is displaying the real terra cotta warriors. She encourages all of her students to go visit them.

There are gnomes in the bay area and they have been shown all over Oakland, Simonds said.

“It’s all very serendipitous. I feel like we’re in sync with the universe and it’s all coming together, just like it should,” she said.

After the project is over, Simonds hopes to send the gnomes to her son, PHS alumnus Marshall Wentworth, who currently attends the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where the students organize a prank every year, called a hack.

“MIT has had a number of clever hacks,” Wentworth said. “There have been police cars, complete with dummies and donuts placed on the dome, a giant cow was placed up there, and we’ve stolen Cal Tech’s cannon before. In 2003, apparently, someone else did a gnome hack and placed them all outside of the student center.”

Simonds is hoping that Wentworth will do some hacking with her gnomes, where she is hoping they will display the gnomes on the iconic dome at MIT.

“I will take the gnomes on an adventure around MIT, photographing them in iconic places,” Wentworth said. “Eventually, they will appear on top of the great dome, which is where most of the big MIT hacks happen.”

Both Wentworth and Simonds are excited to start the hacking with the gnomes.

“I would love nothing more than to see our gnomes on top of the dome,” Simonds said.

Simonds is very enthusiastic about the change in this year’s gnome project.

“Adding the warrior aspects to it and tying it historically has made it more interesting,” she said. “I think its taken a little more seriously and [the students] are spending more time. I’ve raised the bar in terms of their quality– they have to pass the imperial muster.”

However, ceramics student senior Brian Hosler is less enthusiastic about the project.

“I find the twist to be restrictive. I know plenty of people who have fantastic ideas for gnomes that are ruined by the warrior requirement,” Hosler said.