Page 1 of 1

Best Design Voting

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 10:01 am
by Skywalker Racing
Our Pack and District both award Best Design trophies based on Scout voting.

In the past, we've used ballots (where Scouts write the car # of their top 3 favorites) and the bead (not bean, this is Louisiana and we do everything carnival style) in a cup method (each Scout given 3 beads to drop in the dixie cup of his 3 favorite cars (can drop them all in one or distribute as he sees fit).

What I'm looking to do is speed up the process electronically somehow. I'm considering a text in to vote polling site, but that sort of takes the tactile enjoyment away from the Scouts. Anyone have an other ideas?

What would be really cool is a push button system that would tally votes for me (a simple wire stretched across the lineup with buttons wired in in front of each car), but that sounds really time consuming to design, build and program.

Best Design Voting

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 11:35 am
by whodathunkit
Might try looking at the push button counters that keep tally's of how many times the button is pushed!

The cheap electronic ones that have lanyards you can ware around your neck or the simple push counter types that are hand held.

You can find them on the web for $9.00
Or so.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Re: Best Design Voting

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 11:50 am
by Skywalker Racing
I considered those but you'd need one for every single car, and it could be tough to enforce the 3 favorite car practice if there are too many Scouts voting at a time or if the process is rushed.

Re: Best Design Voting

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 2:42 pm
by Vitamin K
I don't know that I'd trust Scouts to only choose three to vote on if it was by push-button.

If the beads are a uniform weight, couldn't you tally by weight?

Re: Best Design Voting

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 7:24 pm
by Skywalker Racing
I could test that Kurt, but my guess is they are too light to measure accurately. It is a good idea though.

Re: Best Design Voting

Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2018 3:46 am
by Speedster
We have a District in the Erie council (no, it's not my District) that invites everyone who has raced to bring their car to the District race. It doesn't matter if you have won something for design or a race, everyone is invited to show their car. There are no awards at District level for the Design category. Our District was complaining they were losing money on the District race every year so 2 years ago I suggested we do not have a Design category at the District level. BIG mistake. Fortunately, 2 men who are active in the District race are police officers and they were able to keep order.

Re: Best Design Voting

Posted: Sun Feb 11, 2018 8:49 pm
by whodathunkit

Re: Best Design Voting

Posted: Sun Feb 11, 2018 9:35 pm
by Skywalker Racing
That's the one I was considering. We've used it at work before. You think it'd zap all the fun out of it for the kids?

Re: Best Design Voting

Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2018 7:31 pm
by whodathunkit
Well there are a lot of kids that have smart phones now or days!
Parents to for that matter..
Might try it out to see how they respond to voting .


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Re: Best Design Voting

Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2018 7:34 pm
by Vitamin K
Ugh. Personally I would do all I could to keep the Derby from being a time where kids were on phones. Just personal bias. :)

Re: Best Design Voting

Posted: Wed Sep 18, 2019 10:43 am
by dkoudijs
We run an electronic voting system. Its a large touch screen, with a list of all the cars on it.
You vote in each catagory, and the system tallies the results.
Its beside the pit area, where the cars are stored between races.

There is normally a line for the machine and the kids all have fun voting.
We do a split voting system (judges and popular vote) if you want to know more PM me.
I can send you my code to if you want, looking to integrate it into the racing software this year to pull names and such.