Cub Scouts Pinewood Derby
My two oldest sons are both cub scouts and tonight was a Pack Night. Cub scouts are organized into dens and packs. Tiger, Wolf, Bear, and Webelos all get together and do some activity on pack nights. Sometimes it’s a demonstration from a local organization (my Tae Kwon Do school did a demonstration, for instance). Sometimes the local Astronomy club speaks (as was the case for my friend Steve’s pack). Tonight, though, was the biggest pack night of the year, for it was the Pinewood Derby and many scouts spent many hours preparing their home-made cars for the big race.
Who am I kidding, I made the damn cars and my kids maybe spent 10 minutes applying spray paint and stickers all over my basement floor. Oh, and they did a little sanding if you can call it that.
Back to the race. The Pinewood Derby is a race of wooden cars built to a rigid specification that emphasizes simplicity. The cars are propelled only by gravity and a lack of friction. Air resistance and aerodynamic designs, they say, play no part in the performance of the cars. The cars are judged on how fast they can go in the 2-3 seconds they sail down the old wooden track made specifically for this purpose. It’s a straight track and it holds the fate of each scouts dreams in it’s emotionless span from starting gate to infra-red finish line.
Like many fathers, I started out with a simple kit which contained a small block of wood, four plastic wheels, four nails, and an instruction booklet. This Pinewood Derby was my first and I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.
Luckily, my contractor and friend Greg was doing work in my basement and was kind enough to cut a car-shape out of the raw pieces of wood that came with the kits. If I was left to do it, the car would, well, it could have been ugly.
Here is a picture of the Pinewood Derby track:
When all was said and done, the cars I made for my sons did quite well. Giovanni placed third for the Wolves and Antonio placed second. I could not be more pleased and the kids really felt great.
Here is a picture of my sons with their cars after the race:
Here is a picture of some of the other cars:
(If these pictures are too big for the blog, I apologize. I’m still learning markdown and the blogging bundle in TextMate.)
One of the cars, one of the winners in fact, was amazing. I wish I had a picture of it. The paint job was superb! The car had a blend from dark to light that was simply gorgeous. The cars were fast, too, so I suspect the father had some decent engineering know-how.
All in all, it turned out to be a pretty great night. I took plenty of photos and a ton of video. Lots of memories to remember for a long time.
I’d like to thank my friend Steve for sending me all kinds of PDF’s and guides on how to make the car fast, perhaps some of those techniques came into play tonight and I don’t think we would have fared so well were it not for his sage advice. Thanks Steve!