Today was the pinewood derby for scouts. Ryan, like most of the boys, eagerly looked forward to this day with thoughts of schematics, races an excitedly showing off your car with pride. Since neither Roger and I feel overly confident with our creative building skills, we are a little more apprehensive about the whole project. It came to an unanimous conclusion that Ryan's car should be all about the "look" and not so much about the performance. Thus, last year he built a car in the form of a tank. We were a little stumped on what to do this year. Ryan came up with the idea to do something Star Wars themed. He researched stuff on line and then presented his ideas. Roger quickly grabbed onto the Star Wars idea as well and thus the X-Wing fighter was born.
The biggest hangup with the x-wing fighter is that it is a plane and therefore has wings. This would immediately take the car over the size limitations thus eliminating Ryan from the race. After much creative thinking we came up with detachable wings. This allowed for the "coolness" of the plane and the functionality of the car. Heavy duty magnets were used and the final result was awesome. Ryan was so proud.
It turns out, that the x-wing fighter turned out to be quite the racer as well. It was so fun to watch Ryan, each time his car went on the track. He was ecstatic. He ran 4 different heats and placed first in 2 of them and second in 2 of them. Since it was all computerized (and there were 33 cars in total) we had no idea how Ryan would end up in the rankings. We were pleasantly surprised when he got 5th place.
Trophies were also handed out for other categories. Ryan also received an award for the "Best Concept Design". This was a proud moment for father and son.
This years Pinewood Derby would definitely be considered a success.
