Pinewood Derby 2011

Our cub scout pack's pinewood derby was held this weekend.  As we were setting up for the big event it occurred to me how different this was from when I was a cub scout.  It used to be that everyone would show up with their cars, weigh in on a balance scale, and run down a wooden track until the fastest cars were figured out and the winner declared.  Our derby looked more like the mission control center for a shuttle launch.  We had three laptops, a DVD player, LCD projector, two amplifiers, a digital scale measuring the cars to 1/10 of an ounce, and an inkjet printer on the head table.  One of our laptops was connected to the digital timer on our plastic track which identified the scaled speed, time, and 1st through 4th place cars for each race.  The software on the laptop would organize which cars would race in which lane and picked which cars would advance to the next heat.  With a couple of booster rockets would probably could have landed one of these cars on the moon.

Once everything was setup our system kept things moving right along with upbeat music helping to keep the excitement up.  The kids were great and would cheer on the cars in every race.

Each year I am impressed by the diversity of the cars the kids create and this year was no different.  One of the most popular cars with the kids looked like a chocolate covered pastry with sprinkles.



Patrick's design was lightning bolt themed which looked great streaking down the track.