This reminds me of when my son was in high school. It was post-Columbine, so zero tolerance for anything even close to dangerous was pretty new. A teacher- this is high school- assigned the kids to make their choice of many options on a list she wrote to illustrate medieval times... including a weapon! Guess what all the boys in the class made and brought for display in the room? Yup! Weapons! I asked her about it, but she wasn’t going to back down, maybe because she knew the boys would at least do their homework for once! She told me the room would be locked when she wasn’t there... riiiiight. Apparently she’d used the same assignment for a long time and didn’t even take the time to re-read it before handing it out one more time. Typical.
My 8th grade son just did this with his Latin project. Last year he made a small trebuchet. This year he made a Roman sword. He worked for weeks (with instruction and supervision from his Dad) welding, forging, and polishing a full-size sword. His teacher had OK'd the project, but he wasn't allowed to display it at school. He won best of show in the local competition, but at the awards banquet he'll have to display photos on a poster rather than the real article. I'm frankly surprised the teacher approved it, but she's a mother of a teenage son and we know her well enough through Scouts. I guess she understands how normal boys behave and found a way to work the issue. She's alright in my book.