914 Pinewood Derby Car

Brother · 02-19-2007, 05:13 PM

Oh the benefits of being a cubscout den leader. Now I own 2 914's.

degreeoff1 · 02-19-2007, 07:23 PM

sweet! I like and remember my pinewood derby days.....ah I miss being a kid...:-)

Brother · 02-19-2007, 07:26 PM

I beat all of the dads.

Brother · 02-19-2007, 07:31 PM

Here was this years field. Some more purposeful than just decorative. My ugly magnets for weights worked pretty well. I was just glad that my son's car won several heats. He was 4th overall. The winners were older than him. I didn't even do that much work. He drew the profile, I had it cut out, and we painted it with a rattle can. I pushed in the wheels.(with a bit of graphite, and he glued on the magnets.

degreeoff1 · 02-19-2007, 07:38 PM

see the 914 does have a low drag coeffiecent....:-)

Brother · 03-04-2007, 01:07 PM

Nice car degreeoff. I just looked over your webpage.

I'm also working on a 1972. I'd be interested to see some detailed pictures of relocating the fuel pump and the battery.

pbanders · pbanders's Garage

We did ours yesterday. Our den had 100% participation, 11 cars, my son's car did OK, not first, but not last. Sure was a lot of fun for both of us. Across the pack, there must have been nearly 50 cars! Took a long time to run all the heats....

Brother · 03-05-2007, 07:10 PM

That is pretty awesome. I would love to see that many cars. Our pack is small. I have 3 tigers and 1 wolf. There are a few webelos, but there are about 24 boy scouts. We need to do some serious advertising.

pinetreeporsche · 03-06-2007, 07:57 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by degreeoff1
sweet! I like and remember my pinewood derby days.....ah I miss being a kid...:-)

d-off: you might try becoming an assistant pack leader--or at least a resource person for the pack meetings before the Derby date--our kids have 3 weekly meetings with lots of adults and tools. My boy scout is 15 now,almost an eagle, but I still help the cub pack at those meetings. My own cars have won best all-comers 3 or 4 of the last 7 years. One was a wide-body, with the wheels set in (no rule saying the wood block has to be as narrow as it is. So this year I started on a 914 with body the full width of the wheel track, with a real 914 shape on the fenders over the wheels. Turns out the proportions are almost to scale--wheels, length, etc. It wasn't done in time for the pack event--maybe I'll get back to it this week for the regionals--or not till next year.
At the yearly Cub graduation--the blue and gold dinner with the arrow of light ceremony, I also dress up as chief Akela in quasi-Indian garb, and shoot real arrows into a target, which are handed to the boys afterward as their arrow of light. Indoors! (and haven't missed a shot yet, in 5 years, about 40 boys.) The kids love the ceremony as much as they like the pinecar events. So I get to be a kid, too. Never too late.

Brother · 03-09-2007, 09:26 AM

Our Blue and Gold banquet is on Monday evening. Should be fun. Everyone gets their badges.

pinetreeporsche · 03-09-2007, 09:59 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Brother
That is pretty awesome. I would love to see that many cars. Our pack is small. I have 3 tigers and 1 wolf. There are a few webelos, but there are about 24 boy scouts. We need to do some serious advertising.

We had a dwindling pack, and our scoutmaster came up with a great recruiting tool: we arranged with the elementary schools in our service area (3) to let us bring the track and some old cars at their lunch hour (usually 2 hours, with rolling start times). We were outside, where they spill out after eating, usually for 5 to 15 min till class resumes. They used a draw-a-card, 1-8, to pick a car--like betting on it. WE Handled the cars--put them on the track and started them. Still, they yelled for "their" car, got in line to chose a car again. We gave out little cards w/cub scout diamond- shaped symbol on one side, and contact phone numbers on the other. Lots of calls, lots of new recruits. Takes about 3 leaders (wear uniforms) to do it. Make sure its not real cold weather, and have a rain-date approved, just in case. And get a few potential leaders ready to help with the transition--it'll take a few weeks to get some of the new parents into leadership roles. We doubled our pack, This year graduated 20 arrow of light webelos kids to the troop!

Brother · 03-10-2007, 06:08 AM

That's a great idea. I live on a military base and the pack on services the base. People in town go to another pack so we have a limited audience and no school to go to. We could probably still go to the school that services the base.