Gabe’s Pinewood Derby

Another Pinewood Derby race—which means Gabe has been in scouts for a full year now! He likes scouts for the most part, but mostly it depends on the activity they’re doing.  He does not like scouts when they’re playing basketball (it seems like that’s the go-to activity), but he really enjoys when they do a craft or a science activity.  I guess it’s safe to say that Gabe is very non-athletic.  He is my child, after all!

Anyway, Gabe choose a skateboard design, which is a simple design but it requires a lot of cutting to get it from a  2.5-3”  block to a quarter inch sliver.  Of course it wasn’t that easy since the front and back turned up slightly.  Erik did most of the work.  It was a lot of sanding! We learned from last year's mistake and painted the car before putting the wheels on.

Erik told Gabe that if he wanted to make his car extra fast he needed to get online and find out what to do. Of course Gabe didn't do any research, so they didn't make any special modifications to the car. Gabe actually did pretty well this year; his car won 4 out of 6 races even though he didn't place. The winning car was the bishop's son, and it went on to win the district competition. It seems like we didn't have a very good chance of winning the pinewood derby when racing against cars like that.

Some videos of the race

Gabe won a made-up award for "most skateboard-like car" *eyeroll*

I think the boys had more fun messing around on the track after the races than the actual races