Pinewood Derby

On top of the 100th day of school we had the Pinewood Derby, "the" thing in Boy Scouts.  I think pretty much any man who was ever in Boy Scouts could tell you about his experience with this.  At any rate, we had pretty low expectations.  Nate found a few websites with suggestions, Z looked at some pictures, and they got to work.  Nate really let Z do almost all of it...not sure if that was entirely true with everyone else... At any rate, Z wanted it green with Chima on it (the next big Lego thing...thanks, Lego, your marketing is going great!).

Then Z got sick the week before the Derby, and we weren't even sure if he would finish making it, much less make the race. But it got done and we decided he could go as long as he didn't breathe on anyone.  :)   

They have 4 lanes, and each car gets a chance to run in each lane (some lanes are faster than others, apparently).  Then they do an average to find out who won.  Z's car came in 3rd or 4th in each run, and he was kind of disappointed.  He did not come in 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place, and they didn't announce them down to the end.  We figure he was in the bottom quarter.  Thankfully (for us) there was another boy whose car stopped dead on the track each run.  (Poor kid is NEVER going to forget that.)  To our advantage, though, we could encourage Z:  At least yours crossed every time, and it wasn't always last.  He was satisfied with that.  He got a medal for competing.  The scout master or whoever gave them all the speech "we're all winners because we tried" (really?!).  They also gave out a "best effort" award...as they announced it I was just thinking "please not Z, please not Z"...best effort?  I guess 1st graders don't know better.  But they gave it to the kid whose car stopped each time.  To me, that is insult to injury, but maybe not to a 1st grader. 

Anyway, Nate and Z looked at all the other cars and have started thinking about next year.  :)