derby doings

Introducing, the grand Pinewood Derby race!

For our Cook Family Party yesterday, we had a derby race for each of the families that live here in Utah.

This lovely green one with the fan on the back is ours.
We didn't have the same restrictions (like weight) that the Scouts have, so we all had some fun with it. Jason spent a lot of time working on ours. He disassembled the motor to a RC helicopter, that no longer flies, and attached a fan as a propeller on the back. We tested it out a few times at home, but didn't want to wear down the battery, so we saved the true excitement for the actual race day.
But we encountered a problem. The finish line!
Before the heats began, all the cars were warming up and testing out the track. We ran it a couple of times without the battery pack, but with all the kids' (and adults') encouragement, we turned it on for a final practice run.
Ooops. Let's just say, our car won that heat by a long shot! It went zooming by... and crashed into the end... and the fan shattered into about 3 pieces and the battery pack went flying and the car, well, the wooden part was still intact, but that was about all the glory it had.
At least it was awesome one time!!

It actually did win a couple of heats, but it just wasn't enough to take the championship without the real power behind it.

Along with the races, we had points awarded to the best design, the most artistic, and the most unique. The winners (counting from left to right) were a tie between the 3rd and 5th cars, the last car (or London bus), and the first one, respectively. (yes, the first two are bricks!)

The final places, between the races and the votes for the making of the car, were as follows:
(the number following is again counting from left to right.)
1st Brian and Jenny (their car is #2, but they used a different motorized one for the races.)
2nd Terrell and Cindy (#5)
3rd Dad and Mom (#3)
4th Travis and Ashlee (#1)
5th Jared and Allyson (#6)
6th Jason and Sally (#4)

This video is one of the heats where our car actually won!




This video is the final heat:




Two of the prizes (for 2nd and 3rd place) were bags of popsicles. The grandkids really enjoyed that!

Brigham and Sam

Especially the little boys.

Cheers!




Andrew and Josh

A few of the participants:
Brian, Dad, Jared
Dad, Jared, Allyson, Livia, Jason
Jenny, Mom, Ashlee

I admit, I was a little worried about this activity. Jason has talked about doing this since our ward's derby race last summer. Since May was our month, it turned out to be a great chance to do it. I was worried that all the wives would be really annoyed with this activity... and maybe they were! But we had a lot of fun and I think the kids had a blast!