Pinewood Derby 2010

Our branch has an annual pinewood derby competition, which is the highlight activity of the year here. We let the kids enter cars as a cover-up, but let's be honest, this race is really for the grown-ups. These guys in our branch are finally able to put their engineering degrees to full use! Many of the cars were designed with state-of-the-art design software and created with top quality factory tools. And to finish: coated with water-proof, smudge-proof, glare-resistant, bullet-proof paint. We, however, having no engineering degrees, made our cars using a $1 handsaw, a piece of borrowed sand-paper, a couple bottles of nail polish, and a lot of elbow grease. Neither of our cars won a single race. However, we feel comforted that they at least went down with style points!

Here is our ode to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. This car's name is Willard (after the man Will Smith himself). His paint job was better than his racing skills.

This car is an ode to the tasty New Zealand treat - the Tim Tam (Ever had one?). This car's name is Tim. Unfortunately, Tim was too heavy so Sam spent the better part of the activity drilling large holes in his under-side so he could make the weigh-in cut. Maybe that is what threw off his equilibrium and ruined his much anticipated mad speed skills. I mean look at him! With aerodynamics like that Tim should have slammed this race!