My son's friends were all in a Cub Scout den together, and so we enrolled him in it this year. The time has come for his first ever Pinewood Derby. If you've never heard of it, it's where you have a block of wood, and you have to turn that into a car. Then they race the cars down a slanted track, with gravity alone providing the momentum, and see who is the fastest. Usually, they also give out awards for nice designs too.
I'm not a very knowledgeable wood worker, but I did my best, cutting the pieces that we needed, making sure to preserve all of my fingers, gluing the pieces on so that we had that Batmobile shape, then trying to fill in all my mistakes with putty. I worked on it up to the very last minute. In fact, I had to leave for work and I wasn't even around to help him finish up by painting the windows for the cockpit. He did that all by himself.
I kind of wish I had been there to give him some pointers, but at least he got to do something. You're supposed to have the kid do as much as possible, but it's always almost all the dads doing the work.
The final car looked like this:
It's not amazing, but I still think it turned out pretty cool, and we were hoping that he might be able to garner a design award. There was some pretty stiff competition, though.
The bathtub, the ghostbusters car, the remote control, and--probably every kid in the place's favorite car--the Minecraft car were going to be pretty hard to beat. I should have given us more time to work on the paint job or better yet, making the car a faster one.
Because, unfortunately, the wheels only got a tiny bit of attention. I put them on the car the very day that weigh in took place. I sprayed some graphite in there, and did my best to get those wheels lubricated and eliminate friction, but it didn't help a whole lot. his car was pretty slow.
It came in last place in every race that it ran. It wasn't terrible. There were a few cars that didn't even have enough get-up-and-go to make it to the end of the track, so it could have been worse, but his car was no speed demon.
It had stiff competition from the other interestingly designed cars, and even lost to those cars in the races as well. The stinking bathtub car, as non-aerodynamic as that is, managed to outperform our Batmobile on the track. Pretty sad considering that we'd watched several YouTube videos about how to have the fastest car, only to throw all that advice in the garbage and spend all our time making a Batmobile instead.
It was okay, though. Little was happy with his car, and that's what actually matters. He had a good time with his friends, eating pizza, racing cars, and horsing around. So it was a success.
Little didn't win any design awards. I don't know if they even had any actual design awards, truthfully. I never heard them hand any out. They did give all the kids a patch for participating in the event, and it's a good looking one.
The awards didn't matter, though. We had fun, and that's what a pinewood derby is all about.
It's not amazing, but I still think it turned out pretty cool, and we were hoping that he might be able to garner a design award. There was some pretty stiff competition, though.
The bathtub, the ghostbusters car, the remote control, and--probably every kid in the place's favorite car--the Minecraft car were going to be pretty hard to beat. I should have given us more time to work on the paint job or better yet, making the car a faster one.
Because, unfortunately, the wheels only got a tiny bit of attention. I put them on the car the very day that weigh in took place. I sprayed some graphite in there, and did my best to get those wheels lubricated and eliminate friction, but it didn't help a whole lot. his car was pretty slow.
It came in last place in every race that it ran. It wasn't terrible. There were a few cars that didn't even have enough get-up-and-go to make it to the end of the track, so it could have been worse, but his car was no speed demon.
It had stiff competition from the other interestingly designed cars, and even lost to those cars in the races as well. The stinking bathtub car, as non-aerodynamic as that is, managed to outperform our Batmobile on the track. Pretty sad considering that we'd watched several YouTube videos about how to have the fastest car, only to throw all that advice in the garbage and spend all our time making a Batmobile instead.
It was okay, though. Little was happy with his car, and that's what actually matters. He had a good time with his friends, eating pizza, racing cars, and horsing around. So it was a success.
Little didn't win any design awards. I don't know if they even had any actual design awards, truthfully. I never heard them hand any out. They did give all the kids a patch for participating in the event, and it's a good looking one.
The awards didn't matter, though. We had fun, and that's what a pinewood derby is all about.
No comments:
Post a Comment