Davis's first cub scout pinewood derby is on the 23rd. We started his car in mid-December so it would be a low stress, fun thing to do together. I understand a lot of adults get really into it, and I'm probably not immune, but I wanted Davis to do a lot of the work. He ended up: using the coping saw the cut the shape, sanding with an orbital sander, applying the sanding sealer, spray painting the car, painting the flames, using the hot glue gun to add the weights. The only things he didn't do were put on the wheels and use the router to cut a place for the weights.
Along the way, we measures how modifying the car changed how fast it went. We had a ramp in the living room and measured how far the car went under different circumstances (Davis figured how that how far the car goes is related to its speed). We started out with the finished car, without weights, then added weights in three different increments and saw how a higher weight made the car go faster. Then today, we measured how far it went without and with graphite.
Tomorrow, we are going to have a race between his pinewood derby car and one of my old ones.
