pinewoods Derby.

[ptonsparky]

Watched one of the grandsons race his Pinewoods Derby car tonight and some of the cars had to repeat a run several times before judges were happy. Good time. Fun to watch. Derby cars are 5 oz pine wood blocks with wheels that coast down a track.

Now what would be the best way to catch the winner in those cases.? Prox sensors, photoelectrics?

 

[mivey]

Photoelectrics would be my thought.

 

[gar]

130106-2329 EST

In the long past in our area the car that went the greatest distance was the winner. This means low friction and high inertia.

.

 

[fillmorr]

I am thinking that we used photoelectrics on the tracks.

 

[infinity]

A low budget solution would be a cheap video camera connected to a computer where you cold playback the crossing of the finish line with slow motion and freeze frame/pause.

 

[mike_kilroy]

Our US GMC motorhome group got into pinewood derby racing with small GMC motorhomes. allows the kid out of us older folks

For our local group, I made a small box for end of track with IR LED facing down, IR transistor on bottom for thru beams on the 4 parallel tracks. basic stamp processor to do the math hooked to small rs232 type LCD display. added a prox sw to track start bar so we could give each person their exact run time too.

 

[ron]

I would suggest getting ideas from mass produced ones, then you can take the best of them (or just buy one of them). http://www.abc-pinewood-derby.com/pinewood-derby-track.php

 

[Speedskater]

My grandsons raced last Spring. My son reports that adults race these cars, shipping them to the track. They have all sorts of secret lubes and alignment and balancing stuff.

 

[Speedskater]

From my son, adults racing Pinewood Derby cars.

Derby discussion sites:

Derby Talk (this has the most frequent inputs - the moderator ?Sporty?
has some highly advanced discussions but poor writing style):
http://www.derbytalk.com/index.php

Derby Worx (gets a lot of input from the different performance shop owners):
http://pinewoodp.proboards.com/index.cgi

PDDR (tends to get more info on the pro and modified class of adult racing):
http://pddr.proboards.com/index.cgi

PWDR racing (runs various monthly races ? mail in car and watch on internet):
http://pwdracing.proboards.com/index.cgi

 

[Jraef]

OMG, I was so in to Pine Wood Derby when I was in Scouts, but my son was totally disinterested and his Scoutmaster was adamant about parents not 'taking over" for thier kids (which I agree with).

But it never occurred to me that there was an adult version! I think I may have found my new addiction...

Laser line scanner would be perfect for this, as long as someone has a $5K budget. :roll: