Pinewood Derby Results

[Tom Watson]

Well, last night was the last time for Little Dude to run in the PWD. He'll be going into BSA next year and they don't hold with that sort of thing.

He did a goodish job of being fussy and paying attention to details this year and was rewarded with a First Place in his pack of fifty cubs.

The only really funny thing he did was using the wrong face on the

1500 grit sandpaper when he was polishing the wheels and axles. We corrected that.

They raced three heats to get into the finals and then three heats in the finals.

They run on a forty foot wood track, with 35' 1 1/2" between the start and finish lines.

His combined average for the six heats was 2.8103 seconds.

That compares to the youngster that was Second, at 2.8837 and the Third Place finisher at 2.9063.

If the common wisdom that .008 seconds equals 1 inch, then he ran 9

3/16 inch faster, on average, than the next best car.

LD has learned a lot about taking pains doing this PWD stuff.

Now I want to hook him into designing and building a nice shelf to house all his cars and bling.

Regards,

Tom Watson

tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)

[Leon]

Perhaps the projects will be more involved and interesting in the BSA.

Goodish, is that a cheese? ;~)

I fail to see the humor in that , having done that myself. ;~)

That was some timer you were using.

Dont you love it when you see that your preaching the basics starts to show up in the trainee? LOL Good fer y'all.

Yeah, good luck with that. LOL

While my son is considerably older, several years ago in his Physics class the students had to design Derby sized cars to run a track that looked like a mirror image fron one end to the other. From both ends a car starting on each end and raced down ramps towards each other to floor level and back up a 2' high hump in the middle. The cars were to colide on top of the hump in the middle. The car that "stopped" on the hump and did not fall off won. Trials were used to insure that all cars would reach the hump at about the same moment. Once that was accomplished the modifications were made to insure that your car remained on top of the hump after the collision. "Our" car incorporated a front bumper that would slide back upon impact. This in turn opened a void space above the front and rear axels that allowed the car to bottom out on its rubber covered bottom. Essentially this car had brakes that caused the car to come to a dead stop and become a paper weight as soon as it was hit. It won. Butt ugly but very effective.

Thanks for the memories Tom.

[Robatoy]

[Garage_Woodworks]

Congrats to both of you! Looking forward to doing that sort of think with my boys when they are older.

[Swingman]

"Tom Watson" wrote

Congratulations to you both, Tom!

As the father of two daughters, I'm trying to think of an equivalent thrill. Perhaps it was escorting my youngest out on the football field at half time as a nominee for college Homecoming Queen this past November.

When she said "Daddy, thank you for being here" and gave my arm a squeeze, my only response was that if I'd had to walk, I would've left a month ago just to get here on time.

A poor man's riches ... his kids.

[Tom Watson]

Not the riches of a poor man brother -

I wish all fathers of daughters to enjoy Cordelias, rather than endure Gonerils and Regans.

Regards,

Tom Watson

tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)

[Nahmie]

You guys are chokin' me up.

Wonderful.