A personal diversion from weather and climate. Readers may recall my earlier reference to this:
I’m proud to say that team Watts did pretty well today: William won first place in his den, and second overall in the pack where he competed with cars made by boys older than him.
I think the ears made the difference. Too much wind loading.
Watch the race below:
This is the final den race, the PokéMobile is of course the bright yellow one.
Here’s the final pack race. William is pounding the floor with anticipation, rooting his car on.
The PokéMobile takes a close second place.
Our secret: properly aligned and polished axles, plus graphite saturation and working it into the axle surface so that it stayed on during the race.
My son was beaming. So was daddy.
Scouting is still one of the best things you can do with your son.
Mayhap the crimson circle on the PokeMobile’s left front is intended to represent a rosy cheek. But as observers have long pointed out, it is also the Japanese symbol for Nippon’s classic Empire of the Sun.
My boys experienced this lifetime event with me as their pitcrew advisor. We kept the front end low and heavy, and well rubbed with pencil lead. We sanded the entire thing to death to make the surface as slick as possible. Then we put in a lego man deep in the seat. Can’t remember where we placed but I do remember the fun we had.
Well done Team Watts. Way to keep the old man on the straight and narrow William!!
yeah, it’s all about the axles and keeping all 4 wheels in straight, true and non-wobbly alignment.
Nothing’s too good for our boys in uniform.
The global warming police will be trying to outlaw this sort of gathering in the future. Too greenhouse-gas-intensive, what with the footprint for the transportation, and all. Often overlooked, but soon to be accounted for, is the extra CO2 and water vapor emitted by the fans at these sorts of spectacles due to the increased respiration rates brought on by the excitement of competition. This will, of course, have to be reigned in to save the planet.
Also to be considered is the extra CO2 emitted due to the after-hours work put in by father and son in the days leading up to the event. This led to, not only increased respiration, but to increased energy consumption, probably even a bump up in the demand for evil beef.
All that being said, you’ll probably be in for only a warning and a slap on the wrist. My obsession with travel softball for my two girls, on the other hand, is the death sentence for the planet. God help us.
/sarc off
Well done Mr W, nobody can take the time away from you.
And well done William, now get the old man to source some top grade plumbago!
Have fun
Woot! You and your son made memories that will last a lifetime! And someday your son will run across a thread like this and proudly comment that, “My dad – *son stands straight and tall* – gave up a trip to Lisbon just so he could watch me compete with my Pinewood derby! And I won!”
!@ur momisugly#$ on Lisbon!
There’ll be another Lisbon.
Count on it.
Congratulations Team Watts!!! Looks like an absolute blast!
William,
Great car! Great Race! Great fun! Thank you for sharing the PokeMobile with us all.
Kip Hansen
Nice ride
(he’ll know what that means)
and yes, my dad showed me how to drill holes and melt lead…..
(to legal weight, I got a little wild with the wood rasp)
we didn’t realize that WD-40 and graphite powder are a bad combination , turning into a cub car killing goo
I lost but I won from the experience
for all the parents- hint at the kid , wash after done with soap and water, rinse hot
when dry (really dry, not damp) ((wheels to))
buy a tube of graphite lock lube from the hardware store
and kick a$$
protips from the [d]
[d]
When i was a kid did this sorta thing for shop class. My car won its race even while losing a wheel =D! I gave up my spot in the finals though, you couldnt “fix” your car after the races..so it would of been pointless racing without a back wheel lol.
*OOO-RAH!* as the leathernecks say! Job well done, Anthony!
Thanks for the update, Anthony. The ‘Pinewood Chronicles’ was a fun diversion from the more typical fare here at WUWT. Let’s see ‘Pinewood Chronicles II’ here next year, eh?
Congratulations to your son (and kudos to his dad, who has his priorities straight).
Congratulations to you and William, Anthony. Your post makes me look back somewhat wistfully almost 40 years ago to my son’s pinewood derbys.
Sunrise, sunset…
God bless you guys!
Bob
Congratulations, Willaim and Anthony. You’ll be glad you got your priorities straight in the years to come. What a pleasant relief from discussing science.
Great! I am 50 with 3 boys, three and a half, two, and 1 week.
I look forward to such great times.
Pete
yep. it’s all in the axles and wheels. the ‘show’ part is meaningless in the race, but a lot of fun creating neverthless.
for some reason, my kids’ cars always ran faster backwards. ?? go figure.
This is the stuff that matters.
But hex-boron nitride is called ‘White Graphite’.
But that borders on something we don’t need to be teaching the young’n to do.
But I’ve never seen a car racer yet that didn’t, I grew up around them. Rusty, even Mark Martin used to, oh well, nevermind.
Moving the ears down in front might have caused cavitation, which would allow the rest of the PokéMobile to travel in the created vacuum, thus reducing skin friction drag.
Case hardening the nails would also help.
Keep that in mind for next year.
If you haven’t already seen it, check out the 2005 movie release “Down and Derby” for a humorous inside look at the Pinewood Derby:-)
Nice car, William!!
You did some good work on that car. I also like the ears. Good design feature.
Larry Geiger
Scoutmaster, Troop 720
Viera, FL.
Congrats! I remember placing fourth in the Washington, D.C. area back in 1981. It was funny because in my den trials, I didn’t even finish first. I made some adjustments – added (lots) of graphite and weighed down the car with two quarters and taped them to the bottom. The car weighed the maximum, and with my streamline design and added grpahite, my car killed in the pack finals. Went on the city championship and won every heat, except for the finals. Lots of fun and great memories. Thank you for that blast down memory lane!