The Pinewood Derby...

Part of the Pinewood Derby is that the boys are supposed to do most of the work on their cars themselves. Parental help is supposed to be kept to a minimum. Looking at the cars, I can tell that the majority of these boys (most of them are 8 or 9 years old) had their Dad's do most of the work. I am proud of #1 and #2 for doing most of the work themselves. D only did the drilling to put in the weights, and helped them put the wheels on. They designed, sawed, sanded and painted themselves (our cars are in the middle. #2's is the blue and green one, and #1's is the gold and pink one).

Here is a shot of #1 and #2 just before their cars raced each other.

I know that Pinewood Derby racing is a lot of fun for the boys, but I feel like too many of the parents interfere. Our boys' cars were actually doing pretty well when a well meaning adult decided to take pity on some of the other boys whose cars were not doing well. They put graphite on the wheels of the losing cars, and some of those boys ended up placing in the top three. I was also disappointed that the boys that placed in the top three were rewarded with a large back of M&Ms and all the other boys got a regular sized candy bar. I think that it made the boys whose cars were not as fast feel bad. I think awarding the ribbons for first place and such is fine, but giving them a bag of candy five times as big as the other boys got took a lot of the fun out of it for the other boys, and I thought fun was what it was really supposed to be about.