Pinewood Derby Workbook & Logbook (Fox Chapel Publishing) For Scouts to Keep Track of Design, Pattern, & Painting Ideas, Log Test Run Notes, and Add

Pinewood Derby Workbook & Logbook (Fox Chapel Publishing) For Scouts to Keep Track of Design, Pattern, & Painting Ideas, Log Test Run Notes, and Add

Follow along with Dash Derby as he guides you through the daring world of Pinewood Derby! Use this workbook to: Draw your pattern ideas for your Pinewood Derby car - Design your car's look with painting ideas - Keep track of the weight of your car's parts as you build it - Log the details of your test runs - Record the rounds of your race day events - Note all your favorite memories from your races - Keep photos of you building and racing your first Pinewood Derby car Part logbook, part journal, you can use this workbook along with the book Getting Started in Pinewood Derby to learn the basics of building a Derby Car. Check out all the cool ideas and pick a few to make your car look awesome! Then, work through the set-up sections and record your progress along the way. After all the hard work is done, you can glue pictures of your speedy car right into this book, and record your memories of the race so you'll never forget. Stick with Dash and these guides, and you'll have an awesome car built in no time! This last weekend my neighbor and his son (age 7) invited my son, Decker (almost 5), to come and watch his Cub Scout Pinewood Derby race. If you're not familiar with this event, the Cub Scouts host a race every year where the participants take a standard block of wood and four plastic wheels and turn it into a pure racing machine or something else. It's been over 30 years for me, but I still remember my dad taking me out into the workshop and helping me use his bandsaw and sander to carve up my own car, #87. It wasn't much to look at, but it was mine. It still sits on a bookshelf in my office as a reminder of not only the race but also the time I spent with my dad at a very young age, learning to use some basic woodworking tools. Decker isn't quite old enough yet for the Cub Scouts, but he absolutely loved looking at the 100] cars sitting on display for the judges to examine and weigh. All cars must weigh less than 5 ounces, but racers try to hit as close to 5 ounces as possible because the weight of the car affects its speed when it is released on the downward-pointing ramp. There were a lot of interesting solutions to getting the cars up in weight (the block weighs about 1.4 ounces and the wheels and paint add enough to bring it up to about 4.3 ounces so there's some wiggle room for embellishment and personalization of a racer's vehicle.) Races this day were performed 4 cars at a time. To ensure fairness, multiple races were performed with each car racing on a different track (1, 2, 3, or 4); I'm guessing this is done because maybe one or more tracks run faster or have a better/smoother surface. Whatever the reasons, each scout gets to see his car race multiple times. Awards were given out for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place finishes for different troops/ages as well as some design awards. In addition to taking my son, I also took along a set of 4 books provided to me by Fox Chapel Publishing that relate to the Pinewood Derby. I passed the books around to the various scouts and parents, letting them take a look at the information that I'd already read and discovered about creating a great racer. The first book, Getting Started in Pinewood Derby by Troy Thorne, is the clear choice for the beginning scout. It's a full-color book with some really detailed photos showing how to cut, carve, paint, and decorate your racer. There's advice on safety, tips on making the wheels run faster and smoother, help with getting your car to the proper weight, and a great little documentation section at the back for recording information about your racer such as race times and taping in some photos. You'll also find a small number of templates that can be cut out (or photocopied) and taped over the block of wood, helping you make the proper cuts to shape your block of wood into some really cool designs. Hands down, this is one of the best little books I've seen on basic woodworking skills, and I'm very impressed with the cartoon character of Dash Derby who provides tips and advice throughout the book on improving your racer's odds in the final race. The actual instructions in the book are written for a young reader, and I'm very happy to see that Thorne wrote the book not for the parent, but for the scout - simple language and short sentences for each full color photo make it easy to follow along and tweak your racer's wheel alignment, decal placement and many other racer details. The book follows loosely the format of a comic book in many sections, with balloon windows showing a step and POW BANG BAP sound effect graphics added for fun. This 96 page book is the perfect gift for any new Cub Scout, but honestly the book is pure fun and would make a great parent/child project for any weekend. I'm already planning on visiting the scout supply store here in Atlanta and obtaining the block/wheels kit because Decker asked after the event if we could make a car. Actually, I plan on buying two kits one for him and one for me. Why m