My 6 year old is a boy scout, so we were introduced to our very first Pinewood Derby Race this year. If you grew up in the US and were a scout, or had a scout for a sibling, you probably know how this works ( and might even have a few little pinewood cars tucked away in a box somewhere), but it was all new to me: you get a block of wood and a set of wheels and a list of dos and don’t : no using batteries, no engines, no building cars weighing over 5oz. You have a few weeks to turn the block of wood into a car and take it to the races.
Race Day is VERY exciting: looking at all the cars, finding out their names, ( my son named his Death Stalker, which kinda worries me) and best of all, racing them on the tracks.
There are so many race categories, but every little scout (and his dad) wants to win the race for the fastest car. A pretty high tech ramp races the cars against each other and times them to the microsecond.
Besides “Fastest Car” there are other things you can win at: “Go the Distance” measures how far your car goes down a ramp and then along a flat plane. “To the Line” measures how close you can get your car to a given point. Older scouts with very serious titles like “Vehicle Escort Official” and “Security” help measure and record distances.
The winners and awards? They’re a month away at our next meeting, and with prizes for slowest car, funniest car and best car that doesn’t look like a car, every little scout is going to go home with some award!
More sketches and some photographs from our first Pinewood Derby, on my blog.
