Pine Wood Derby

When Alex turned eleven and moved from Cub Scouts into the regular boy scout program I celebrated. I didn't have to do any more pine wood derbies. You would think that being an Engineer this would be something that I would  love but my boys never won any pine wood derbies and didn't ever really even come close. I don't know why, it wasn't for lack of trying. I figured that I would put the center of gravity to the back of the car. The car was on a downward angle at the start so in theory with the center of gravity to the back of the car you would have more kinetic energy. Didn't work, all it did was make the front wheels wobble. I figured I would lift one wheel off the ground a bit so there would be less friction. Nope, didn't help. I always went to great work to make sure the wheels were smooth and well lubricated but so did everyone else. Probably my most depressing year was when Roger Platt took the wooden block out of the box and put the wheels on and raced it. He almost won.

Well a couple of weeks back Noah Outley asked me to help with his pine wood derby car. It's been more than a decade since Alex left cubs so I was ready for another try. Well Noah and I had a lot of fun and he made a pretty cool car but we didn't fair any better than I did with my boys.

It is kind of frustrating when you go to these things and you see some of these very fancy cars with glistening coats of paint and intricate carvings and you just know that the dad did all of the work. Noah did all of the work on his car. I could have done more work but he really wanted to do it and that is the way it should be. He did a great job too. Unfortunately the pain ran a bit under the masking tape but that happens.

We took it to the weigh-in and were able to get it exactly to 5.0 oz. That is the maximum amount allowed. They did several heats and we did win two of them so we did ok. We didn't make finals however but Noah didn't seem too bummed. We had a great time.

----------trivia----------

Cleopatra lived closer to the time the iPhone was invented 

than she did to the  time the Great Pyramids were built

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