My son's car

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Pinehead Rick
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Re: My son's car

Post by Pinehead Rick »

Sylvar wrote:This is how our pack handles the Best Car /Best in show award. The judges are told to pick out the car that looks like the boy did most of the work. I will admit that this is biased against those boys with natural talent, however I would argue that by the time they are old enough to really shine (and use power tools) they are also old enough to understand why the award is given out that way.

Shane
Again, I can't agree with this... my boy did lots of work with this car enough so that he has claimed ownership of it... it was a joint effort a real bonding experience...so according to these rules, we might be penalized for the time we spent together.... not cool!
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dknowles67
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Re: My son's car

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The judges are told to pick out the car that looks like the boy did most of the work.
Are the boys/parents told that this is how they will be judged before they start working on the car?
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Darin McGrew
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Re: My son's car

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Sylvar wrote:This is how our pack handles the Best Car /Best in show award. The judges are told to pick out the car that looks like the boy did most of the work. I will admit that this is biased against those boys with natural talent,
Yes, it is. It's also biased against boys whose fathers support them in a constructive (no pun intended) manner, in an effort to be biased against fathers who take over the project. Again, the point isn't to have kids build model cars independently. The point is for the kids to work on a project with their parents, or with other trusted adults.
Sylvar wrote:however I would argue that by the time they are old enough to really shine (and use power tools) they are also old enough to understand why the award is given out that way.
IMHO, that's a lousy excuse. Have you ever seen a kid bring in a beautiful car that he was so proud of, a car that represented the best he could do, only to be told that his dad built him a really great car this year?

The message conveyed isn't that his work is so good that it looks like an adult's work.
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Pinehead Rick
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We won!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Tonight was our local pinewood derby...and for the first time.... WE WON!!!! but what a ride... Last night I got a call from the Pack leader's wife that her husband was sent to the hospital and admitted and I had to run the event.... Well, this is only my second year with the boyscouts and I simply had no clue how their electronics worked or how the heats were run....I kind of remember from last year but really didn't remember all the details... so, I made a trip to the hospital today on my lunch break to try and pick his brain... I was nervious... so the time came and I started the races... btw, the way that the heats are run on this track is each set of three cars are raced in each of the lanes... our finish gate records the winning order and each car is assigned a point based on their placing... i.e. first place = 1 point, second place = 2 points, and third place = 3 points. At the end of the three heats the points are totalled and the car with 7 points is eliminated... my son's car was #1 due to the fact we were (for obvious reasons) the first one there so we were in the first heat... I carefully staged the car on lane 1 and the other two cars in their prospective lanes... my helper, a boy scout, pressed the button, the starting pins fell and woosh, the cars were off... my son's car easily rolled ahead of the pack... great feeling! The second heat came and now I put my son's car on lane two and put the other cars in the other lanes... well my boy scout helper was a little to vellious and pushed the button before I had the cars properly staged... I cried "No wait" which prompted his hand to go smashing down in an attempt to stop the cars from rolling down the track... well he caught my son's car in his flail and ended up smashing the windshield with the force of which he pressed it into the track... I thought for sure that was it, the car's alignmet was sure to be off and all the hard work was undone before we had a chance to prove the car... well the car did feel the effects of the beating but it did eek out a victory none-the-less... just a very close showdown in the last heat... it was nice for me (even if it wasn't our car) to see a car, that looks like a car, beat out wedges, arrows and other just-for-speed oriented cars... granted, it probably won't stand a snowballs chance at district but just for once we got away with a car that wasn't a traditional design!
The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible
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