Pinewood Derby Extreme Edition

Friday night we had a Pinewood Derby Extreme Edition event and it was really great. The only rules for the competition was that you couldn't use fire or gunpowder since it was indoors. This ruled out the use of Estes model rocket engines. However, there were some really good cars. The winning car used twin propellers mounted on the back of the car. There was one built from a RC car motor, one with a pull-back type toy car and one with CO2 cartridges. There was a hands-off start rule too so the CO2 car had a string with a hook that would release the spring loaded nail to pierce the cartridge as it began rolling down the track. The release mechanism had a consistency problem though. When it all worked well the car killed everyone else. But it only worked well two or three times so it didn't win in the end. There were a total of 10 cars entered in the race.

Below are pictures of our car. Katie came up with the concept and bought the Acorn Squash and jewels. She made the decorative wheels out of wire and at the last minute remembered we had an old Cinderella to pu on it. I did the gold paint job on the car and squash and Katie did the decorative paint. I polished the axles by putting them in my drill and spinning them on extra fine sandpaper. I also removed the burrs from the inside of the plastic wheels and lubed it all up with oil.






Amazingly, this car came in 2nd place overall. The polished axles make a Huge difference. We lost out in the end to the propeller powered car aptly named "Breaking Wind". However, we deserved the Best Sportsmanship Award because I brought my oil can and shared it with everyone. If the propeller car hadn't applied the oil he would not have won. All in all it was a great activity. Next time we should do it outdoors with an asbestos covered track so we can use fire!