How do you Handle CNC cars?

3 Cub Dad · Post by **3 Cub Dad** » Sun Feb 10, 2008 9:16 pm

I'm sure others have run across this....

Sitting at District roundtable, we were discussing our upcoming District Derby. One of the leaders spoke up and said that they had a local company that would CNC mill cars for anyone who wanted. He said they had several designs and had just developed a VW bug for his son and they had a few cars done for kids in their pack. I was a little shocked by this. My first thought was that this wouldn't be allowed under the district rules, (after all, I wrote them). However, I went back and looked and this looks to be a loophole. The rules say that the car must be built from the official BSA kit, and that no pre-cut kit cars allowed, but it doesn't say you can't farm out the work to $500,000 machine. The rules don't even "say" that the scout must do most of the work. You might ask "why is this a big deal?" Well, I know that cutting out the car won't help the speed. (in fact, it's probably counter-productive to speed), however, we have opened up the derby for a District-wide "design" competition. That is, any scout can enter a car into the District design competition. But only those "advanced" from their packs race. So we'll have cars cut by computer controlled lathes competing against scout constructed cars. Which do you think will look "Best in Show"?

I guess they have to be allowed this year. Am I making too much out of this? Is this any different from having a parent who's a good woodworker with the right tools, or a great artist? I guess the thing that bugs me is that the scout isn't even involved in it.

Any thoughts?

Stan Pope · Post by **Stan Pope** » Sun Feb 10, 2008 9:49 pm

When the judges see identical "cutouts", I'm sure that they will understand. The Derby Chairman can suggest to the judges be on the alert and decide if they are judging on the boy's work or what the boy's "contract out."

ohiofitter · Post by **ohiofitter** » Sun Feb 10, 2008 10:06 pm

I agree with Stan. But as long as the scout was to design the car and the cnc just cut it out,is there a real harm in that. There are parents that don't have the resources. We are lucky enough to have a den leader that opens his garage to all the dens,not just his den But for parents that don't have the proper tools. Must of the kids used a plain old drum sander to shape the car. I myself do not have that type of sander. It works great for the kids, They are exposed to a pinch point but most likely wont lose any fingers. I always rough cut the car out on my ban saw but the boys have a lot of sanding to do after that. And the idea is to teach the child techniques to use in life the boy might grow up to be a machinist

Bulldog · Post by **Bulldog** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 10:13 am

Seems to me a little common sense needs to be practiced here. What is the intent of your rules? I'm assuming is that the intent is for the boys to make their own car, hence the "no precut kits" rule. Seems that having a CNC shop carve the car out of a BSA kit, it is essentially turning the BSA kit into a precut kit before anything else is done to the car.

Now, if the boy can demonstrate that he programmed and set up the machine to carve his own designn then I suppose I wouldn't have a problem with it.

Go Bubba Go · Post by **Go Bubba Go** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 11:49 am

Bulldog wrote:Seems to me a little common sense needs to be practiced here. What is the intent of your rules? I'm assuming is that the intent is for the boys to make their own car, hence the "no precut kits" rule. Seems that having a CNC shop carve the car out of a BSA kit, it is essentially turning the BSA kit into a precut kit before anything else is done to the car.

Now, if the boy can demonstrate that he programmed and set up the machine to carve his own designn then I suppose I wouldn't have a problem with it.

Missed ya' Bulldog, how you been?

In all seriousness, if the boy learned enough that he could do it on his own (if he were permitted by the machine owner and it were safe to do so), my gut is to say OK fine. If he just "placed an order" and ran, this is not good.

I would think CNC operation would be over the head of most Scouts (perhaps not a Web I or II...), but I wouldn't want to discourage a boy with access from hopping up on Dad's lap and learning some really cool stuff.

Tough to enforce, though. Using a "build up" rather than "carve out" approach, we've been able to build some cars that look like CNC products. I would strongly discourage parents and boys from anything that approaches a consumer instead of builder approach, but it is tough to try to identify 100% the approach used based solely on the car itself.

Bubba

Bulldog · Post by **Bulldog** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 1:29 pm

Go Bubba Go wrote:Missed ya' Bulldog, how you been?

Hey, Bubba.

I've been well, although quite busy. 'Tis the season again, eh?

This year I am taking a far more active role in the pack's derby. My son is a webI, and since our webIIs cross over prior to the derby, this is his last year. This year I have been asked by the CM to run the track on race day and "pit night". So I've been trying to understand the intricacies of the software and determine everything that could go wrong and how to correct it if it does. Also, since this my son's last year, I decided to try to make it a memorable one for the whole pack. I have been very busy making Stan's plaques- about 100 of them.

I've been away on business alot recently, so thankfully, my son is capable of building his car with minimal intervention this time, allowing me to focus on the plaque project (we are quickly running out of time!). It is quite rewarding to watch him be able to do so much on his own now. (And at the same time, quite depessing to watch him grow up so fast!)

PWD_addict · Post by **PWD_addict** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 7:19 pm

We instructed our judges to award "Best Paint Job" to the best paint job clearly done by a Cub Scout. You could do the same with design.

SlartyBartFast · Post by **SlartyBartFast** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 3:52 pm

Give design criteria that goes against the CNC cars.

Originality, Finish, Painting

I'm sure there are dozens that could be listed. Give a point weighting to each.

Darin McGrew · Post by **Darin McGrew** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 5:24 pm

PWD_addict wrote:We instructed our judges to award "Best Paint Job" to the best paint job clearly done by a Cub Scout. You could do the same with design.

I've seen some kids produce beautiful paint jobs. All it takes is the patience and time to do the job right. This kind of "looks like a kid did it" guideline penalizes kids that do the job right. (What happened to "Do Your Best", or to the idea of a parent-child project?)

SlartyBartFast wrote:Give design criteria that goes against the CNC cars.

Originality, Finish, Painting

I get how "originality" can penalize the CNC cars (if the operator cranks out a bunch of cookie-cutter shapes), but how would "finish" or "painting" be any different between a CNC car and a hand-sawn car?

Post by **gpraceman** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 6:11 pm

Darin McGrew wrote:
SlartyBartFast wrote:Give design criteria that goes against the CNC cars.

Originality, Finish, Painting
I get how "originality" can penalize the CNC cars (if the operator cranks out a bunch of cookie-cutter shapes), but how would "finish" or "painting" be any different between a CNC car and a hand-sawn car?

I believe that his point was that there is more that should go into the design judging than the shape of the car. It could have a beautiful shape but a really crummy paint job and/or poor sanding job.

Darin McGrew · Post by **Darin McGrew** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 6:43 pm

gpraceman wrote:I believe that his point was that there is more that should go into the design judging than the shape of the car. It could have a beautiful shape but a really crummy paint job and/or poor sanding job.

Okay... It never occurred to me that shape would be the only criterion. It's a lot like speed: your success is limited by your worst feature, rather than being enabled by your best feature. Or at least, that's the way it is in our design competitions.

Mr C · Post by **Mr C** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 10:54 pm

As leaders/Akela I feel it is our main responsibility to guide.
Keeping with that, we should know our scouts/children within the pack/group and their abilities and accessability to tools from basic to CNC.
If a kid has superior skills leaders know, if the parent had more involvement in the build a leader would know.
A CNC'ed car could be seen as easy way to glory in design awards,
Does the kid learn anything if he had little or no involvement in design or programing ? (Insert a core value of choice)

The idea of the Derby is for the scouts/kids to create a car, it is an
Point A to B project How it gets to B is up to us, a nudge or carry?

mbb · Post by **mbb** » Sun Jun 08, 2008 7:03 am

We have been penalized every year because no one believes my son builds and paints his cars, So I put together a 5 page booklet with pics of him doing every step last year! Doesnt matter, most adults dont know how to paint so they automatically assume an 8 yr old cant either. Wrong.

Painting is 98% surface preparation, and 2% spraying light successive coats of paint. With the trigger handle, and a spray can with a good fan-nozzle on it, any kid can produce an outstanding paint job. Several coats of primer, wet-sanded with 400 grit n between are needed until the car is flawlessly smooth, only then paint. Would a kid do this of his own accord....No. Will he do it when coached by dad....YES. Add a little striping tape to cover paint tape lines and you can get a good looking car with little effort.

Simple to make your own waterslide decals of ANYTHING on a computer today as well. Costs about $10. Lots of fun. After clearcoat is sprayed, they look awesome. Too good. No way a kid could have done that. Wrong again.

As for the CNC, you can build your own CNC router at home for only about $200 - $1000 depending on size. Its actually very easy, a lot of people build them to use dremel tools with very fine bits to produce electronics PC boards. Search Google and you-tube, Its no more out of reach than a bandsaw or good drill press. Unlikely that many have them, but not out of reach.

To answer the question you have to define the task. If you want to say the kid has to cut the car out , you would rule out probably over half the cars because many (most?) are actually cut out by dad on a bandsaw, which for good reason junior doesnt use. So apparently it matters how much work dad puts in to his cutouts?? What about the few disabled kids who do very little of their cars at all? Going to throw them out, obvious they didnt do their own. Would you care if a CNC was used and the car looked like crud? I doubt it!.

You would only care if it was used and it looks very good, so ..its not the CNC that bothers you, its the fact that someones Dad either cares enough to spend a lot of money or a lot of time to acess an unusual resource that help build his son a really cool looking car. Which in itself isnt really a bad thing is it? Depends on how old-fashioned ones viewpoint of father-son car building is! This isnt 1960 when everyone used coping saws!

As always, the issue is that THAT is unfair to the kids whose dads dont have the money, or are unwilling to go that route.

Truthfully, probably 90% put a few hrs at most into their cars. While some work on the cars for weeks or even months. Its not a uniform competition.

pack529holycross · Post by **pack529holycross** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 5:45 pm

in wrestling with this question myself.... i thought that a fair balance would be to look at this from the perspective of a classic car show... unrestored cars are a prized gem, and the more "pure" the content of that entry the higher the marks will be... then the opposite end of the spectrum are restorations, where no dollars are spared and every detail is meticulously rebuilt. I personally see the non-precut "category" of cars to be more of a purist pursuit, striving for an entry that is 100% scout product with only supervision (i.e. the dads hands never touched the car ).
Certainly applying the developmental process from other activities... first you do T ball, then little league, and so on... I consider precut bodies the "T-Ball" of PWD... and an appropriate developmental aide for tigers at least, if not also wolves...
In conclusion, establishing the "T-Ball" category for tigers and wolves then creates a consistent methodology for the development process... body prep and paint become the focus...
yet another example would be model building, where age appropriate "snap together" models help the younger modeller keep interest and learn basic skills...

just my two cents

SlartyBartFast · Post by **SlartyBartFast** » Mon Dec 01, 2008 9:14 am

Mr C wrote:A CNC'ed car could be seen as easy way to glory in design awards

Have to take issue with this. Unless the tool path file is purchased, there's nothing necessarily easy about producing a CNC design.

An in today's world, the skills learned programming a 3D model might be more useful than woodworking skills...

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