We love the Pinewood Derby! Unfortunately, we don't have a Cub Scout anymore:-( But we still got to help out alot this year. Ken has set up and run the electronic track for pretty much forever. If they could give him a calling to do just that he would jump at the chance to do it.
Since Ken was on volunteer duty and I am the Primary Prez we were all on the hook for set-up. Actually the set-up was totally our favorite part of the experience, my family loves have free run of the gym.
Rose serenaded us with some beautiful songs. She is really creative and will come up with songs for whatever is happening around us.
Nathan danced a little jig next to her as she sang.
While Ken was setting up the software the boys had fun messing around with their old pinewood derby cars.
They were more then happy to test out the track too.
Nathan practicing his MC skills. We were super proud of the boys, they helped out a ton while the races were going on. MC'ing who was going to race and collecting cars from boys and putting them on the track.
Ken doing the weights and measures. My poor husband put in alot of time to make this Pinewood Derby happen the way that our Bishop wanted it to. Our Bishop did not want the boys to compete against each other. He was very adamant about that so Ken created a program that would show the boys how much they improved their race times during each heat. Each boy was allowed to race their car however many times in an hour period and make adjustments to it. Then after the Bishop spoke to the boys they did an official race for anyone who wanted to compete at District races.
Having no competition meant that there weren't any little Cub Scouts crying, there also wasn't really much cheering though either. Which was really sad. Some boys were able to make their cars go faster, but it wasn't really substantially faster. I was really excited about the part of making adjustments but not that many boys did. And because of the time and how the heats are pre-arranged by the computer program it would be hard to do any substantial changes that would be needed if you truly were going to improve your car's time.
Also, even though Ken's program took away all the race standings and times, leaving only the improvement you made from your previous races...the Cub Scouts could still see who came in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th from how the cars finished at the end of the track--we couldn't take that aspect away. And the Cubs still kept track of it and would make comments to each other. I don't know if that was really visible to most of the adults but since the boys kept trying to look over Ken's shoulder, he heard alot of the comments and the competition was still alive and well even in this format.
I am grateful to my husband for re-writing the race software to do what the Bishop wanted. He is so talented and it involved him having to hack the race software to make changes. We were super frustrated that he spent about 40 hours on it though. I would not volunteer him to do this again. Especially because he was crazy with business trips the 3 weeks before and only had gotten home 10 hours before the Pinewood Derby. Our family needed him and would have benefited from his time way more then the Cub Scouts did.
As it was, Ginger ended up having her first preschool field trip the day of the Pinewood Derby. I should have just gone with Ginger but I felt like I needed to be at the Pinewood Derby and that had been scheduled first. I was so sad that I missed her field trip and cried many tears over it. I hate feeling so torn, that isn't something I have to deal with normally since I get to stay home and care for my children. Here they are sorting mail.
Ginger totally LOVED the mail unit of her preschool so to visit the Post Office was a huge treat! She still talks about it all the time. This is her whole class being weighed.
In the mail truck.
Ginger has the sweetest preschool teacher who offered to take her even though I couldn't attend. She also brought her to the church building so Ginger could be with us. I was so much happier when she joined us!
Rose and Ginger got their faces painted by some of the Young Women and totally loved it!
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