Speed and Design Trophies Judged Seperate or Together

[chesspupil]

What is the consensus:


I have seen a 1st place Design winner also take home the 2nd place Speed Trophy. In a small group this seems especially unfair. Since there are only so many trophies, I feel the Speed winners should be excluded from the Design trophies. Thus the Design is awarded after the Speed competition... and could mean the Design judges need to pick there top 8 choices in the case of 1-4th place finishes.

Our group has only 16 participants... and though winning is not the end purpose, and not everyone can be a winner, it's small condolence for the 4th place speedster that was an obvious shoe-in for a first place design.(Design being the fickle subject of taste and fads)

Argruments for and against all welcomed.

I feel those that arrived just a little too late, did not pass inspection, were disqualified for jumping the track too often, and all those that played with good sportsmanship while NOT winning speed are still eligible for the design trophy judging

[BlackLotus]

I disagree with the "unfair". Maybe unpopular but, as I see it, if you built the best looking car (judged by some subjective terms) you should not be eliminated from running to see if you built the fastest car. Likewise, just because your car is fast does not mean it isn't slick to look at.

[blcrow33]

I agree with BlackLotus. Just because the boy designs a nice car and also puts the time into making it fast, he should not be penalized for doing either. These are two separate categories and should not eliminate each other.

[PWD_addict]

Our Pack allows all cars the opportunity to win any Trophy. However, my son's car won 1st in Speed and then got Most Creative. I would have preferred to spread the trophies around and not have him eligible for design trophies.

[CM924]

Do Your Best! Doesn't that mean your scouts should do their best in all things? In other words try to make a nice design and make it as fast as possible? I can see that there may be hard feelings should someone walk away with two trophies and someone else gets none, especially if one kid misses by just a fraction. The spirit of competition however dictates that there will be those who win and those who do not, and not winning is an opportunity for sportsmanship experience.

[CM924]

Oh and Addict, nice car!

[knavekid]

Our pack only awards trophies for the racing - 1,2,3 for each den, 1,2,3 for pack, and 1,2,3 for open. The pack winners will go home with two trophies (den and pack).

We also award certificates for enough categories that every scout gets one. At the end of the day, every scout gets to come up and be recognized for something positive about his entry.

[PWD_addict]

Oh and Addict, nice car!

Thanks. That was a fun one to put together. We did, however, have the light too low for the 3/8" clearance but since our track is open in the middle, it didn't affect anything and they let it pass.

Our pack only awards trophies for the racing - 1,2,3 for each den, 1,2,3 for pack, and 1,2,3 for open. The pack winners will go home with two trophies (den and pack).

We also award certificates for enough categories that every scout gets one. At the end of the day, every scout gets to come up and be recognized for something positive about his entry.

I really like the idea of giving every kid something. We used to do that with the certificates. Perhaps I'll find someone to do that again next year.
That's a lot of trophies and since we do Space Derby and Raingutter Regatta, they only give 5 trophies for speed in our Derby. That way, each of the Rank winners is guaranteed a Trophy since the fastest in each rank proceeds to the Grand Finals.

[knavekid]

I probably should reword my post to say 1,2,3 for each rank, 1,2,3 for pack, and 1,2,3 for open. We only have one den of each rank in our pack.

[Stan Pope]

My district history:

Throughout the past 20+ years, race entries required "qualification in the pack races." This stimulates pack activity and district race participation. Design entries were "open to any registered cub scout in the district", partly, I think, to allow participation in the event at some level.

Up until the late 90's the speed and design categories required separate entries. Awards were independent with no provision to exclude race trophy winners from receiving design trophies.

Between the late 90's and about 2004, the PWD chairmen du jour decided to exclude race trophy winners from receiving design trophies. Arguments against the procedure were to no avail. Separate cars were still needed.

About 2004 the racing entries were included with design competition. A boy could choose to submit separate cars for the two categories. The "one trophy" rule persisted. It was still an administrative headache.

In 2006, we merged two previously separate design competitions into one and let the judges divide the entries into several more categories and avoiding cases in which the scout entered a car into one category but judges thought it fit better in another category and would have "scored better" had it been entered there.

This year we are "back to our roots" regarding how many trophies, but still combine racing and design-only entries for design competition. I think that it is a good plan because it rewards results earned. Hope the cub scouts think so, too.

On recognitions, I prefer some material PWD-identified trinket over certificates. As a youngster, I put them in a cigar box. That cigar box came home as part of Dad's estate this past year, and it brought back a lot of memories. Mostly they were good memories, but I can still taste the awful water at Camp Wokanda!

[Darin McGrew]

I have seen a 1st place Design winner also take home the 2nd place Speed Trophy. In a small group this seems especially unfair.

What is unfair about recognizing someone for building a car that is both fast and good looking?

Since there are only so many trophies, I feel the Speed winners should be excluded from the Design trophies.

This is a pet peeve of mine. This turns the design awards into consolation prizes. If you want more kids to receive trophies, then award more trophies. If you want every kid to receive something, then give participation ribbons/badges/certificates/whatever.

I feel those that arrived just a little too late, did not pass inspection, were disqualified for jumping the track too often, and all those that played with good sportsmanship while NOT winning speed are still eligible for the design trophy judging

We have the opposite situation. We hold registration and weigh-in on Wednesday night, the judges inspect the cars on Thursday or Friday, and our derby is Saturday. We've had cars show up on Saturday that we let race, but they weren't around for the design judging, so they couldn't receive design awards.

We've never had a car disqualified for jumping the track, although we have had adult cars that were seriously overweight (they glued a second block of wood to the one in the kit, and then couldn't hollow out enough wood to meet the 5oz limit). I suppose the overweight cars could be eligible for a design award, but we've never had one during a year when we had design awards for adults.