Shortly
after we moved to Potomac, our eldest son joined the local Cub Scout pack, 773,
which is sponsored by Potomac United Methodist Church. The pack our son had joined near our former
home in Virginia was newly established, with just a handful of kids and a
rather harried group of parent volunteers always scrambling to pull things
together. It’s been exciting to be part
of a much larger pack here, with a really talented and committed group of
leaders and an impressive variety of activities.
We were
expecting that the Pinewood Derby at the pack here in Potomac would be pretty
special. But nothing we had seen yet
quite prepared us for the event that unfolded a few Saturdays ago in the United
Methodist Church’s Parish Center.
The Pinewood
Derby isn’t quite as old as scouting itself, but it goes back over sixty years,
when a scoutmaster in California decided that his charges weren’t quite ready
for the then common project of constructing cars out of soapboxes to ride in
down a hill themselves (these were the days before soap came in plastic wrap
and people worried much about liability insurance). The scoutmaster’s idea was to have the boys to
whittle or cut a car out of a small piece of pine, to nail on some simple
wheels, and then to race the cars down an inclined track.
The Derby
has probably become the signature program of Cub Scouts. All across the country, boys have been working
with their dads in these late winter months to put together a car that will
hopefully speed across the finish line, and cut a bit of a figure along the
way.
I expected
that this pack would take the Derby a little more seriously than our last
one. In our Virginia pack, if you had
managed to apply at least a little paint and have four wheels in place, you
were doing pretty well. But I was still
pretty surprised when the Potomac pack leaders sent us a six page list of
rules, along with a youtube video explaining the physics of Pinewood Derby car
construction. There was a weigh-in
night, and a requirement that the car be kept by the pack overnight to avoid
tampering. There was also a parents’
division, to cut down on dads competing vicariously through their sons, where
the aim was to design the slowest car possible.
I feel a bit
out of my league in these areas, having not really given physics a thought
since the mid-1990’s, when I squeaked my way through the 11th grade
version, which I don’t remember laying much emphasis on aerodynamics. We didn’t watch the video or do any weight
adjustment calculations. My son and I,
though, both thought his car was quite handsome. After he had traced the design on the block
my uncle, a master of the scroll saw, cut it out in his shop for us. My son then painted it with a few odds and
ends of tubes from the drawer in the basement.
The stripes were even straight (mostly).
He was really proud of it, and I was proud of him.
When we went
to the weigh in, they told us we should add some weight to the car, and a dad
who clearly was more on top of the matter supplied some weights and glue. We were a little daunted by some of the other
vehicles being carried in to the weigh in—some with inner cavities filled with
lead, others delicately carved and painted in shiny car paint. Some of these dads had clearly watched the
physics videos (maybe a few had doctorates in wooden car engineering). A few of the cars even seemed to be scale
models of famous racecars.
As it
happened, the big race the next day was lots of fun, even if my son’s car
didn’t win any of its heats—the pack penchant for careful planning insisted
that each car have a chance to run a heat in each track position. In five heats, his did beat one other car,
not that anyone was counting. The kids
were cheering for each other, and, on the whole, seemed less interested in the
results than their fathers.
The Pinewood
Derby, after all isn’t really about winning, but about the joy of
workmanship—planning a project, following all the steps to make something
special. It’s also about time well
spent, as parents and their children gather ideas and share talents, learning a
little more along the way about each other and the way the world works. The competition angle pushes us a little to
do our best, and if victory comes, it’s a bit sweeter for the work we put into
it.
Creative
work enhances our dignity, and is a sign of God’s wisdom working within
us. When we bring a project to
fulfilment, we have a sense of the creative joy He revealed in pronouncing all
things good. As a secondary gift, such work deepens our love for each other,
and spurs us on to do even better.
Next year, I
guess I’ll need to learn a little more about physics. Maybe we have a little car touch-up paint out
in the garage that would make the thing shine.
It will be fun again, I’m sure, a gift for my son and for me, to make
something good together in the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment