Pinewood Derby

It's that time of year again, where the desire to let my boys feel a sense of accomplishment is countered by my desire for them to make it into adulthood with all their fingers attached. That's right, last Friday was the Cub Scout Pinewood Derby.

Ryan's car was "The Frankenstein" & Ethan's was "The American"

After reading a friend's post about his boy cutting out his own car, I approached Peter about doing the same. He promptly reminded me that Ryan almost cut off his hand last year when carving soap with a pocket knife. In other words, no way. So I settled on letting them draw their own designs on the block of wood while Peter handle the band saw. They did sand and paint their creations (I might have done some touch up after they went to bed).

And here is the amazing thing: Ethan took 1st place!! I think he was glad I wouldn't let him go with his first choice in car design (a book) or his second (a ruler) or his third (scissors). In fact, after our original brainstorm, I decided to insist on a car looking design. Although slightly underweight, his car zoomed!

We thought for sure Ryan's car would be faster, but a small design flaw (weights too far back and back wheels too far forward) caused his car to wheelie at the bottom of the track. He did win one heat and took it all in good measure.

Here is what I learned:

• there are a lot of sites with printable car templates;


• googling "pinewood derby car templates" will bring up a mix of those site and really nasty sites;


• using masking tape is an effective way to let boys add stripes to their cars;


• polishing the axles makes a huge difference;


• in a scrape, drywall patch can be used to cover holes drilled to add weights;


• see the weights sticking out of Ryan's car- never use that kind they are hard to cut;


• and as much as Peter rolls his eyes in reference to my blog, I heard him telling all his family I was posting about the pinewood derby and they should go check it out.