So this weekend we finally had the Cub Scout pinewood derby. Of coarse, this event is the only true reason that any 7 year old wants to join scouts. About a week prior we began working on our cars. I say "our" cars because the pack allows the parents to enter there "own" car to race after the boys. I guess this encourages the dads to let the boys actually touch their cars. Anyway Caleb was into to it at first, drawl
ing several designs, etc... He drew out the shape on the block of wood and that was about all his attention span could take. I cut and sanded it and then spray painted the base coat. He later wanted to "detail" the car with a "V" and a red dot on the top. Race day was no different. He was all into the first and even the second heats but, after that he was not interested. In total each of the boys raced
8 times in about an hour and a half. During this time I was in charge of organizing all 23 boys and making sure that they were in the proper order and ready to race when it was their turn. Caleb spent that time tell me how much he didn't want to be there, why he was going to quit scouts next year, etc... It was a real treat. I of coarse was getting in to it. The pinewood derby has come a long way since I was a scout. The track was made of about 50 feet of extruded aluminum, sensors tied to timers on each lane accurate to the 0.001 seconds. The entire thing plugs into a laptop that projects the time, mph and place of the each of the scouts on a large screen. It was way cool. Both of our cars had a decent showing in our respective races. The competition was tough and I think I picked up some tips for future races. I'm sure next year will be better, that is if there is a next year.
So this weekend we finally had the Cub Scout pinewood derby. Of coarse, this event is the only true reason that any 7 year old wants to join scouts. About a week prior we began working on our cars. I say "our" cars because the pack allows the parents to enter there "own" car to race after the boys. I guess this encourages the dads to let the boys actually touch their cars. Anyway Caleb was into to it at first, drawl
ing several designs, etc... He drew out the shape on the block of wood and that was about all his attention span could take. I cut and sanded it and then spray painted the base coat. He later wanted to "detail" the car with a "V" and a red dot on the top. Race day was no different. He was all into the first and even the second heats but, after that he was not interested. In total each of the boys raced
8 times in about an hour and a half. During this time I was in charge of organizing all 23 boys and making sure that they were in the proper order and ready to race when it was their turn. Caleb spent that time tell me how much he didn't want to be there, why he was going to quit scouts next year, etc... It was a real treat. I of coarse was getting in to it. The pinewood derby has come a long way since I was a scout. The track was made of about 50 feet of extruded aluminum, sensors tied to timers on each lane accurate to the 0.001 seconds. The entire thing plugs into a laptop that projects the time, mph and place of the each of the scouts on a large screen. It was way cool. Both of our cars had a decent showing in our respective races. The competition was tough and I think I picked up some tips for future races. I'm sure next year will be better, that is if there is a next year.
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