Thursday, April 23, 2015

2015 Pinewood Derby

I took lots of pictures because I thought Grandpa would enjoy seeing them. 
Lamb 1's den made the stands for the cars. Thank you to all the parents and Cub Scout leaders that worked so hard for one Cub Scout evening. Thank you to Les Schwab Tires for sponsoring the evening.

I was quite impressed with how high tech this Cub Scout event was. I'm sure they didn't do as many heats before computers to track everything. Awards were very fair with racing each car so many times and computers scoring. 
It was well run and they did 78 heats for the Cub Scouts in about an hour. The dads that helped got a good workout last night! Then they had open division where parents and siblings could race cars they made. After all that it was finally award time.


After each heat placings, time, and MPH were shown for a few seconds on the screen. Unfortunately I wasn't fast enough to get a photo of Lamb 1's best time.

They also had a camera so you could see close up with all the people there. At about heat 65 the monitors shut off and scared everyone that we possibly lost all that work. A dad that was helping told us with a loud voice that we didn't lose any data, we just lost the monitor. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief at that news.

This dad works for the same company as Grandpa. He was a tremendous help for Pinewood Derby, both getting ready for it and helping the day of the derby. He had the job to transport all the cars back to the pit after they raced. He is using a camera on this race because his son's car was in this heat, he didn't sit there with a camera for each heat. 

Lamb 1 watched every heat with interest. Some of the boys used phones to record their own heats. 

I was so surprised that Lamb 1 won an award that I didn't even have my camera ready. This is not the best shot of him accepting his award.

A Boy Scout troop came to be the judges for design. The leaders told them how many awards they could give out and to feel free to come up with their own awards. They were so creative with their awards. They gave out awards for best game theme, is this really a car?, etc. The Cub Scouts also voted for their favorite cars too and awards were given for that. There were also lots of awards for the fastest cars and one for the safest driver award for the slowest car.

Lamb 1 won the Boy Scout design award for Best "I made it myself".  Our neighbor told us that the Pinewood Derby is really the parents make the cars and the boys watch and do a little work. Ram replied that Lamb 1 was 11 and he could make his own car, Ram would watch and give advice, but Ram was not doing his project for him. We were so proud that the Boy Scouts doing the judging noticed that. His car was not fancy, but it raced just fine and even more important it followed all the strict rules such as weight.

Lamb 1 wearing his pit pass and holding his car. 
We were so happy that Lamb 1 won an award with a trophy. Lamb 1 is part of a large Pack. This was his first Pinewood Derby and he lacked the experience of the other boys in his den. This will also be has last Pinewood Derby because his den will go on to Boy Scouts next year. Ram and I noticed that they gave out lots of awards- some medals, and some trophies, but every boy in the Troop did not get an award.

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