Saturday, February 21, 2009

Vrrooooommmmmm .......

Ever heard of "Pine Derby Racers?" I may or may not have but my husband knows all about them. You buy a little kit that has a block of pine, 4 wheels and axles. Then you design and create your own race car. As a boy, my husband raced his cars with his scout troop and enjoyed it a great deal. So we decided to buy kits for the whole family. Todd found a video of a Pine Derby race and we all enjoyed watching. The kits arrived and now the kids have been drawing designs of what they want their car to look like. Even my non-drawing oldest child finally came up with a design this evening. Isn't that great? I love it when an idea is received enthusiastically. Now the challenge will be for us parents to follow through with helping create the cars and keep the motivation going. Maybe we'll post a photo (don't hold your breath, however!)

I don't know if there are any Pine Derby Races here in our state (there are rules to follow for building the cars) but I think I'll do a bit of research and see. We are not involved in scouting but perhaps there's a way we can race them in a non-scout race. We will see.

In the mean time, the kids and Todd have drawn various cars that look like: a whale, an alligator, a submarine, and, hey, a race car! I'm going to let them design a car for me because I cannot draw (I'm strictly a word person.) But I know how to use sandpaper and paint. We will be facing long rainy days soon (ah, spring in the Northwest) but working on the cars should be a nice in-house project.

6 comments:

Leingang Family said...

Too bad I didn't know sooner. Our homeschool co-op just did a derby on Saturday! :o( Have fun!

Cat said...

Sounds a great idea. My brothers used to compete in a big billy-cart derby when they were in the Boys Brigade many years ago.
Lots of fun (and the crashes are specatular - dust off those bike helmets!)

Cate :-)

40winkzzz said...

Biz used to do pinewood derby with Royal Rangers (a church-besed scouting-type group), and Spaz did them with Cub Scouts. Hubz really enjoyed helping them design & build the cars. (I think it helped make up for his own childhood experience with pinewood derby-- all the other kids had dads and he didn't, and his car was the ugliest & losingest car in the bunch. I think that's why he only did scouts for 1 year.) Although he is a woodworker by nature, he was always able to find the right balance w/the boys of giving enough input & help that they had great-looking cars (which they loved), yet cars that were still their own conception & design. All their cars were father-son "team efforts" when it came to making the car, and with Spaz he sometimes would help with running the derby as well. Oh yeah, and Spaz even had a few that were winners!

moreofhim said...

Hey, Kate! Pine Derby racing is so fun! My boys did it in the scouts and even ended up in the finals down in the big city! It was quite exciting. I hope you find some races you can be involved with, but even if you can't, you can do your own at your home. My boys really enjoyed making their cars and all the races.

God bless you - Julie

jugglingpaynes said...

That sounds like fun! My husband made a pine derby racer when he was in boy scouts. I have a lot of wood blocks (I do some carving and I used them to teach Marina how to whittle). Maybe I'll pull some out and let them whittle. :o)

Peace and Laughter!
Cristina

Anonymous said...

Do you have any particularly good recommendations as to where to buy affordable kits? My 10 y/o son is interested in this! He also wants to know if it's possible for him to build his own engine. ;-)