Building Pinewood Derby cars

[stritle]

Well, the pinewood derby is a week away. Anyone have any tips? I have the cars built, but now need to add weight.

THanks.

 

[jegstad]

Steve,

When my youngest boy was at that stage we discussed this over supper many times with the older ones. The advice we gave after several experiments was to weight it at the front so it would track better without trying to swap ends. We also found it was better to set one rear wheel slightly off the surface so it only ran on 3 wheels, for less drag. Hope this helps.

JimE

 

[aschumacher]

Be careful if you drill a hole in the bottom to add weight. Whatever you add should not extend past the bottom edge of the body, including the glue to hold it in. Some tracks have a slightly higher center guide than others, my son lost a race because of that years ago. Just kissed a short section of too high track and that was all he wrote.

 

[amiller]

Hi,

A quick search w/ Google found these interesting sites:

http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~mdevine/pinewood/pinewood_derby.html
http://www.scoutorama.com/derby/
http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/question169.htm

 

[stritle]

Thanks for the extra effort guys!

I had great luck with the three wheel advice. I ground the wheels down a bit and angled them to keep them from moving back to the body. The weight was drilled into the back and the front with the front getting 75% and the rear getting 25%. Hopefully we will have three winners.

I built a very small test ramp out of plywood. Our basement derby seems to show some quick speeds.

 

[jkoenig]

Steve,

How'd you guys do? My son came in second in his pack and we did poorly at districts. Our district is reported to be highly competitive, though, and we felt our weight (center of mass) was too far forward.

Sorry I didn't spot this post b4 the races. I'd have loved to go waaaaay in depth. I think Dave Kamp's son will be eligible next year or so. That oughta get him to open up on the subject. I've been baiting him for a couple of years now, but he's only nibbled so far.