It's Pinewood Derby Time! (Sept. 11th)

I figured that I would hurry and get a few of the September highlights in and one of those was Zach's first Pinewood Derby. Zach joined scouts in June and loves it! He doesn't like to miss and enjoys all of the activities. He was really excited to have his first pinewood derby too. We bought the kit at the beginning of the summer, but like most people, procrastinated a little until about two weeks until the event. Ryan got out his "special secret" pinewood derby building book and got to work (when he could find the time). Zach was also able to help when he could. Besides a few paint job glitches, Zach and his dad were able to finish with time to spare. Here's the finished project:


They had to "weigh" in the car on the 10th and leave it overnight. They were a little nervous because they couldn't touch the car after that. (No adding that last bit of graphite!) The big race came and they had the whole track sectioned off and it was set up to be pretty official. Here are all of the cars - ready to race:


Each car would take a run in each lane (there were 4) and the car with the fastest times would win. They ran all of the cars quickly and in no particular order, so it was a little chaotic. Here's the cars on the track and the kids watching:





After all of the cars had a chance to race all of the lanes, the officials and leaders took a few minutes to see the results on the computer (I can't believe it's computerized and so official now - it's come such a long way). The last part of the night was spent giving out awards. They awarded lots of different awards from the best looking to the best paint job, etc., then they gave a first, second and third place medal to three people in each den. Zach ended up getting first in his den! The last awards they gave out were to the fastest overall - out of all of the dens. We knew Zach had a chance, but we weren't prepared to get ... first overall! I'm so proud of Zach and his dad! Here's Zach getting his trophy: Good job boys!!