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Pinewood Derby Part II

Posted by Doug Sun, 20 Mar 2005 19:54:00 GMT

Yesterday was the Pinewood Derby for Josh’s Cub Scout Pack. Overall I think we spent about 10 hours on his car getting ready. On the way to the race we talked about how much fun we had working on the car and what his favorite parts were (painting it and sanding it with my Dremel). We also talked about how it was important to have fun and not be too worked up about who would win. Honestly, I didn’t expect us to do very well.

When I walked into the gym where the track was, my first thought was, “I really hope our car can finish the race.” It seemed so long; almost an entire basketball court. I was really surprised though. The cars were very fast and didn’t have any problem finishing. We actually won our first race! They raced all the cars six times (one for each lane) and then totaled the running times for each race. They then awarded certificates to the top three boys from each age group. Then they raced the winners from each age group to find the fastest cars for the day. So, it didn’t really matter how many individual races we won (I think three or four of the six), but what your total times are. We ended up sixth in our age group.

It was a really fun day. A couple of the Dads commented we should do two races a year. I think that’d be fun, but I don’t really know how much work went on behind the scenes to pull the day off. I used my new Canon 50mm/F1.8 lens exclusively. It was more challenging composing the shots because of not having a zoom, but I really liked the Depth of Field it afforded. Overall, I ended up with 16 good images of the day.