We read quite a bit online about pinewood derby cars, and I was amazed and amused at how seriously some people take this race. We tried to follow some of the pointers, but most of it required precision tools that we do not have. And I think it misses the point of the Pinewood Derby, in any case, since it certainly is not 8-10 year old boys doing all that stuff.
One of Ben's coworkers has been involved in Scouting for many years and had a large collection of Pinewood Derby cars and gave Ben some good pointers as well.
The boys made a good showing! Joseph came in first in the first set of 8 heats. Then they raced the final four and Brigham won!
The boys had a pact at the beginning of the race: They were a team. If one of them won, they both won. After all, they had worked together with their cars, and all of the important elements really were the same for both cars.
Well, it was a good thought, but Joseph is competitive, and was pretty disappointed in the results of the final 4 heats. His car ended up coming in 4th in all of those heats, even though he won outright 3 of the 4 previous races, and came in 2nd in the 4th. Ah, well. I think he's reconciled himself to it now. And I think his car was by far the most creative of them all.
Here are some pictures.
The two cars: Brigham's Christmas car (he didn't name it that, but that's what it looked like to me), and Joseph's Shark car. They're both smudged with graphite here, so imagine them cleaned up.
A closer look at Joseph's Shark. Isn't it creative? I just love it. There are even gills on the sides, behind the front wheels, although they're hard to see here.
The Christmas car. Brigham painted it green, and then taped it off to make the red stripes. He originally had gold glitter glue around the top, but it kept coming off so we just painted a gold stripe instead.
Proud Brigham with his car before the races.
Joseph with his car. This was the only picture out of many in which he has a halfway normal look on his face. Stinker! :-)
Joseph's car in lane 3, waiting to take off.
Brigham's car in lane 4 dominating one of the races.
Brigham with his certificate and blue ribbon. All the boys also got candy and certificates (Joseph got an award for the "Most Tropical" and a Fun Dip Tropical candy).
Joseph trying to race his car up the ramp after the races were over. I think he's beginning to feel a little better here. Sportsmanship is hard. It wasn't enough for him to outright WIN 3 of his races. He wanted to win the whole thing... I told him that I think the way the wheels are prepared is really significant to the final results, and we could just as easily have put Brigham's wheels on his car, since all the wheels and axles were prepared at the same time, and I just grabbed them out of the same container when attaching them last night. Oh well. Life is hard sometimes when your twin brother wins the Pinewood Derby and you don't... :-)
2 comments:
way to go Joseph! I think having good ideas is better than winning anyway.
Ahhhh... Pinewood Derbies. Not my favorite Church activity. It seems to bring out all the latent aggressive competitiveness among the dads and inevitably a kid ends up in tears. My strategy -- keep the expectations extremely low. I remember the year someone simply put their untouched block of wood on wheels and ended up winning. But in my opinion, the creating and designing is what it is all about. Good job, Brigham and Joseph!!
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