My son's car

[Pinehead Rick]

This is my son's car this year...he helped sand and apply the spraypaint, also we designed all the stickers ourselves...(he wanted a Sonic car)... the fenders are sculpted with epoxy putty which put a lot of weight to the car (I'm new at this) so I drilled out most of the wood to get the body down around 2.4 ounces.... I will put the lead in the back reservoir which will put the center of gravity right around the inch mark above the rear axles.. tires were just put on for the photos... need to give them attention next! My son is excited and he will be helping to tune the axles and wheels this week-end

[ranman106]

Great job on the decals! What did you use to design them? My son wanted a Bionicle car. We downloaded pics from their web site, resized, and printed them on decal paper using Testors Decal Maker. They turned out pretty good we think.

[TDean]

I'm not seeing Pinehead Ricks photo
is it just me -- or anybody else having this trouble?

never mind -- now it came through -- looks great!!

[dknowles67]

The car looks fantastic!

However, it does bring to mind a pet peeve of mine.
IMHO, the Pinewood Derby should get the Parent/Child to spend time together. It sounds like you and your son worked on this together - that's great! The rest of this message is not intended as a personal attack on you, but to pose a question to the forum. Sorry to single you out by posting on your son's car picture.

There comes a point where it is difficult to distinguish between a car that was a combined effort, and a car that was built entirely by the Parent. To me, it does not seem fair to award the Best of Show to the kid whose dad runs a bodyshop, and whose dad can build/paint the best looking wooden car.
In all honesty, if I were a judge looking at a car of this quality, it would be hard for me to tell if there was any child involvement, or if it was all Parent. Maybe for some Pack's it's not an issue - the best looking car wins no matter who worked on it. Maybe there are some really talented 10 year olds who can produce cars that look like this without parental help. How do other Packs handle this delicate issue?
Our Pack has quit awarding a "Best of Show" trophy, because of too many arguments that got started (I wasn't involved in any).
Someone suggested on another topic, that there be published rules, which are measurable and enforceable, and published guidelines which suggest how the cars should be built. You enforce the rules (weight, length, etc) at checkin, and hope that Scouting has enough integrity that parents will follow the guidelines. Maybe in the guidelines, each Pack could taylor how much parental involvement is expected for their competition.
Sorry if I've crossed the boundaries for this topic on this forum. Maybe I should have posted this somewhere else.

[Darin McGrew]

There comes a point where it is difficult to distinguish between a car that was a combined effort, and a car that was built entirely by the Parent. To me, it does not seem fair to award the Best of Show to the kid whose dad runs a bodyshop, and whose dad can build/paint the best looking wooden car.

We ask our design judges not to worry about such things. First, the point isn't for the kids to build model cars independently. The point is for the kids to work on a project with their parents, or with other trusted adults.

Second, it's easy to assume wrong. I've seen people assume that cars were built by Dad, when I knew that Junior had done most of the hands-on work himself and Dad had been involved primarily as a coach and advisor. I've seen judges assume that a car was just a plastic model built around the original block, when the kid had spent hours carefully shaping the original block so that it perfectly matched the roof and other accessories from a plastic model. And so on.

[Pinehead Rick]

Yes, we used the testor's kit also, just not the software... I have been showing my son how to use CorelDraw and that is what we used... although admittedly, he was more of the director while I was doing the work on screen (at just nine, he gets frustrated easily)... and as far the point about cars and parent involvement, I agree... I try to let my son do as much as possible where I can... I am still not comfortable with him around shop tools but sandpaper is his expertise! and as far as the paintjob, I showed him on some scrap wood how to use a spraycan and then let him use it on the car... if you look closely, it has some paint bubbles and such but he is very proud of it and that makes me very happy! It's true, it should be a collabrative effort. But thanks for the feedback

[ranman106]

To me, it does not seem fair to award the Best of Show to the kid whose dad runs a bodyshop, and whose dad can build/paint the best looking wooden car.

No offense meant but why not? The kid may have a natural ability. This could be his springboard into master craftsmanship. Just my .02.

Maybe for some Pack's it's not an issue - the best looking car wins no matter who worked on it. Our Pack has quit awarding a "Best of Show" trophy, because of too many arguments that got started (I wasn't involved in any).

Our pack doesn't award "Best of Show". As far as I know, we never had.

[Sssnake]

Rick,
NICE SNAKE!!!

Sssnake

[dknowles67]

No offense meant but why not? The kid may have a natural ability. This could be his springboard into master craftsmanship. Just my .02.

None taken.
If the kid has some natural ability, by all means let him show it.
In my opinion, it is not fair to the kids who build/paint their own cars, to award the "Best of Show" to the car that was built/painted by a professional adult, with no kid involvement. Some Packs have a competition just for the parents, and that's fine. And if the Pack allows cars built by parents to be entered for competition with the cars built by kids, and they state so beforehand, that's okay too, everyone knows what to expect.
My complaint is with the Parent who makes a car without spending any time with his kid, and tries to sneak it in as if the kid did all the work.
Like I mentioned, our Pack quit giving a Best of Show, but I would like to reinstate it.
My mother-in-law asked a cub-scout at our last race how he got his car to look so nice, and his reply was, "Oh, I didn't. My granddad has a bodyshop. My dad built our cars for us." (He had an older brother racing too).
Again, this is not intended as a personal attack on anyone.

[TDean]

Our Pack always awards "Best of Show" at both the Den and Pack levels -- and we've never had an arguement from any parents -- why not? Because we let the KIDS vote for which car they think is best (it is, afterall for the kids, right?). We give each kid a slip of paper and tell them they may cast TWO votes -- one may be for their own car -- but the two votes must be for different cars (this avoids a ten-way tie).

The great -- and frustrating -- thing is, you never know which car will be considered most popular. The winner is rarely the one the the adults might have selected -- but who can complain? But this method of voting usually cares little whether a Dad built the car or not, or how "professional" it appears...

Works for us anyway!

[MathGuy]

We did 3 design awards at each level.
Best Cub Scout or Patriotic Theme
Best Car-Like Design
Most Creative or Unusual Design

Winner and runner ups got car stands. I might try to add one that is the "Roughest and Toughest" Design for the most ugliest car, (or car that looked the scout did 100% of the work). I might add most Decals or most colors.

Because of the profesional paint jobs, I don't like best in shows or best paint jobs per see.

[Sssnake]

We did 3 design awards at each level.
Best Cub Scout or Patriotic Theme
Best Car-Like Design
Most Creative or Unusual Design

Somewhat related to this but in the speed/design category, we give awards for most fuel efficient designs 1st, 2nd and 3rd. The announcer makes a big deal of explaining that there are a lot of complicated computations to arrive at these decisions and the importance of conservation and ecology. The boys are awarded ribbons and medals. In reality the cars are picked in ascending order from the bottom of the place finishes. This results in the boys who were upset about being eliminated 1st, 2nd and 3rd to suddenly be recieving an award. This turns a lot of frowns around.
Jamie

[dknowles67]

The cub-scouts don't do it, but the Y-Guides race we participate in give out the "Turtle Award" to the slowest car that actually crosses the finish line. The timers only go to 9.99 seconds, and the "Turtles" usually take longer, so there is always a "finals race" to see who gets the "Turtle Award". I think the kids like this better than the fastest car competition.

[knifeman]

Last year, we gave out trophies for best design in each rank. It was voluntary if you wanted your car to be judged.

To be fair, we brought in a local town 'dignitary' who had no connection with the pack. It was unbiased judging.

You could also get a local small track car driver to come in as a 'celebrity judge'. They usually will wear their gear and stuff. The kids love it.

[Sylvar]

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