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Pinewood Derby (results)
Mar. 11th, 2006 02:41 pmWe just returned from the Cub Scout Pinewood Derby
Tom got his two awards before the race:
Best Design Job - Bears ("Bear" is his year in scouts)
Best Overall Design & Paint (for all entrants)
In racing, he came in 6th in a field of 13 in his year; total field spread was 0.2 seconds, Tom was 0.097 seconds back from top place. Not too bad considering our theory this year was "to heck with it, we're not gonna win the race, let's just look good." and as a result we did practically zero performance tuning; we bent the axles (nails) until the car ran straight, blew in some graphite dust, burnished some graphite on the axles, and called it good. If we took the time to properly run in the axles, adjusted the camber and toe-in, and did a full night's test runs, we might have placed in the top 3.
Tom noted two things right after the race:
1-he moves up 3 places every year (12th, 9th, 6th)
2-the more complex the design, the better it does; so he figures he needs to figure out the most insanely complex design possible for next year.
Yikes. This car was bad enough; a whole weekend spent in carving, and several more nights sanding, shaping, machining, etc.
He was a bit disappointed; he came in first on his first run, but then 2nd on the next two, and it's not an elimination, it goes by fastest time, so winning a race doesn't necessarily mean anything anyway. However, in the informal racing on the old track in the basement afterwards, he did pretty well, and all his buddies wanted a chance to race his car, and even the kids not in his den knew "That's Tom's car", so I think he feels pretty good about it now.
Tom got his two awards before the race:
Best Design Job - Bears ("Bear" is his year in scouts)
Best Overall Design & Paint (for all entrants)
In racing, he came in 6th in a field of 13 in his year; total field spread was 0.2 seconds, Tom was 0.097 seconds back from top place. Not too bad considering our theory this year was "to heck with it, we're not gonna win the race, let's just look good." and as a result we did practically zero performance tuning; we bent the axles (nails) until the car ran straight, blew in some graphite dust, burnished some graphite on the axles, and called it good. If we took the time to properly run in the axles, adjusted the camber and toe-in, and did a full night's test runs, we might have placed in the top 3.
Tom noted two things right after the race:
1-he moves up 3 places every year (12th, 9th, 6th)
2-the more complex the design, the better it does; so he figures he needs to figure out the most insanely complex design possible for next year.
Yikes. This car was bad enough; a whole weekend spent in carving, and several more nights sanding, shaping, machining, etc.
He was a bit disappointed; he came in first on his first run, but then 2nd on the next two, and it's not an elimination, it goes by fastest time, so winning a race doesn't necessarily mean anything anyway. However, in the informal racing on the old track in the basement afterwards, he did pretty well, and all his buddies wanted a chance to race his car, and even the kids not in his den knew "That's Tom's car", so I think he feels pretty good about it now.
