Archiblog: First Pinewood Derby.

I don't know if I've processed all of this yet--we spent the first few days of this week frantically working on the boy's Pinewood derby car. We got advice from my brother-in-law, who has lots of experience in this department; my wife's family has a long tradition of being obsessive about Pinewood derby excellence (and victories). We had to get the winning tips. We got lots. Overwhelming lots--like how to sand down the axles, how to properly weight the car (closest to the back axle, as close to five ounces as possible), how to spread out the wheel base, etc.

So we went to it. We used my brother-in-law's scroll saw to make the initial shape, which turned out to be more difficult than I imagined. Then we used the giant belt sander, which fixed up some of our uglier cuts. We bought about $25 worth of extra stuff to modify our free car. We stayed up late Monday, Tuesday, and desperately worked on Wednesday up until the last possible minute before painting so it could dry before we had to put the wheels on. We carefully monitored our progress on the kitchen scale, epoxied weights into the body, and then freaked out when the wood split minutely when we put the wheels on. It looked pretty good for how inexperienced we were. My hope was that my boy would feel a part of the process, and that it wouldn't turn into a competition with the other dads, who, without really lifting a finger, are probably much more technically adept with tools. I think he enjoyed it.

We arrived, only to find out that my kitchen scale (not digital) lied to me. By about an ounce. Which, in Pinewood Derby terms, is a LOT (if you were paying attention above, it amounts to one-fifth the the TOTAL weight). Thankfully, someone had brought a drill, and we mangled the bottom and pulled out some of our epoxied-in weights (after five or so unsuccessful attempts). We were the last to check in our car.

This is really turning out longer than I thought it would. I'll be brief (I should have said that sooner). They had a round-robin system of sorts. They raced each car three times, rotating it in against two others, and moving it across the track so it tried each of three different lanes. They had the track all rigged up to electric sensors--the results for the fastest cars at the end went out to the fourth decimal point. They were serious. Of course, it actually came down to those last two decimal points between the two fastest cars.

The boy's car came in second in its first race, then first for the next two. The boy was ecstatic. It also won the first prize (everybody won a prize) for "Most Mysterious". Other than the last minute mangling and adjustment, a pleasant night was had by all. Now for the pictures.