Pinewood Derby

 

 

 

 

This morning Eden participated in his first ever Pinewood Derby with the Cub Scouts! He really enjoyed it.

Last night we had to take his car to be "weighed in", since all the cars have to be 5 oz or less. These little wooden cars are marvelously complex, considering they are little blocks of wood on wheels. Everyone seems to have their own strategy for speed, where to place the weights, whether or not to glue the axels in, using graphite to make the wheels spin faster, and of course what particular shape to carve your block of wood in to. Being new to this sport and having absolutely no clue, we simply did our best. Eden of course painted the car, with some help from his dad while he was up at his house last weekend, and we got these application things that you put on with water or something that look like blue flames. I knew that it was pretty unlikely with my total lack of skill in the car making business that he would win, so I figured we might as well make it look as cool as possible. And it was definitely a cool looking car. It turns out it was fairly fast as well, just not quite as fast as the only other kid in his age group who showed up. Oh well. He got a shiny Second Place medal, and his little brother was especially proud of him. So it was a good morning.