Derby Car Mania!

My little Tiger Cub competed in his first Pinewood Derby yesterday.  That meant we had to figure out how to get from this:

To this:

First, we drew out our pattern on the block of wood provided, and then cut it out:

Next step was sanding:

Then comes the fun part, the painting:

Finally, it's time for the racing:

A's car is all the way on the right.  Although he didn't place high enough to go on to districts, he did get a trophy for participation:

We keep calling this year his "learning year" in cub scouts, and learn we did.  Next year we will do several things differently, such as:
     * Start more than 3 days before the derby.
     * Use a better saw to cut out the car.  The saw we used worked great, but it was handheld, and difficult to use without the risk of cutting off your fingers.
     * Weigh, weigh, weigh!  The cars can weigh no more than 5.0 oz, so we were hoping our car was below that.  Boy, was it ever!  At weigh-in, our car was 3.5 oz.  I didn't realize how much difference 1 1/2 oz could make!  Luckily a friend of ours had some extra weights that we could screw on to the bottom of the car.