2012 Line-Up

Show off your cool vehicle designs and track burning speedsters!
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Nitro Dan
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2012 Line-Up

Post by Nitro Dan »

Ok, now that the season is nearing its end, here's the pictures of the cars my family did this year:

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This is my Mr. Yuk outlaw car. I saw a scout car last year that ran very fast that was using a single round weight mounted on it's side. The designer's theory was that no extra energy would be lost at the moment of inertia due to the rotation of a round weight (seems to be on the same lines as having a very concentrated weight). Decided to experiment a little with this theory. The head of Mr. Yuk is a solid lead weight. The car was fast, but not the fastest I've ever made. It took first place in two outlaw divisions at two different packs, but lost to one car at the Girl Scout races. The wheels were cut down using my method described here.

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This is the car that beat me at the Girl Scouts races. It's my wife's car. This is the second year straight she has managed to beat me at the Girl Scout races. Definitely going to have to step up my game next year.

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This is my oldest daughter's official scout entry car. It was fast, but not fast enough to make the finals (took 5th in her division). I've found that girls tend to have a lot different purpose in mind when building cars, then boys do. The car is about 1/4" thick using tungsten as weights and has one front whee raised (rail-rider). She completely hollowed out the inside making a frame and then glued a printed piece of cardboard over the top and bottom of the frame.

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This is my youngest daughter's official scout entry. Again this car was fast, but was just barely beat out for 3rd place (took 4th in her division). The car was made using a thin 1/4" ladder frame with a piece of insulation foam glued to the top. The foam was then rounded to make the catepillar shape. She then put a cover of paper mache over the foam to give the car surface some texture and to create a shell over the foam so no spray paints would melt the foam. Weights were standard lead weights and one front wheel is raised (rail-rider). The car did win an award for "Best Animal Theme".

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This is my oldest daughter's outlaw car. To make it light, the car started as a thin 1/4" ladder frame, and then each panel of the car was cut from 1/8" thick balsa wood or hobby plywood and built up from the ladder frame. This makes the car completely hollow on the inside. The car was weighted with lead weights. Did very well and took 2nd place in the youth outlaw division.

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This is my youngest daughter's outlaw car. She had these two small dolls, called "La La Loopsy" dolls, that she wanted both of them riding in the car. Took us quite a while to come up with a design that would fit both dolls. We finally opted for front and back seat positions in an antique style of car. The car was made very light by cutting each panel from 1/8" balsa or hobby plywood and assembling it to a 1/4" ladder frame. Again, this makes the car completely hollow on the inside. Car was weighted with lead weights. Amazingly this car did very well and took 3rd place in the youth outlaw division (just behind my other daughter).

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This last car is my son's outlaw car. He decided to make the car very thin (1.4" slab) with the hubs exposed on each wheel. Since the car was so thin he inset the wheel hubs so that inside edges of the wheels meet the specifications for the thickness of the block. He used lead weight to fashion the canopy area on top of the car (yep, it's solid lead). In the end it paid off for him, as he took 1st place in the youth outlaw division (just ahead of both of my daughters - a clean sweep of the top three positions).

-Nitro Dan
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Darin McGrew
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Re: 2012 Line-Up

Post by Darin McGrew »

Those are some fun designs! Thanks for sharing!
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whodathunkit
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Re: 2012 Line-Up

Post by whodathunkit »

Nice looking cars there Nitro Dan,

Each and every one of them!

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Re: 2012 Line-Up

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Nice cars, lots of work. Great pay-off!
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Re: 2012 Line-Up

Post by Noskills »

Love the Mr. Yuk! He was designed in Pittsburg where I did my residency. The Pittsburghers would love him.
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ciodude
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Re: 2012 Line-Up

Post by ciodude »

Cool. I'm going to have to show my 4 Girl Scouts that one racer!
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FatSebastian
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Re: 2012 Line-Up

Post by FatSebastian »

Neat!

:thinking: Do the wife's GS car and the oldest daughter's caterpillar car use full-size wheels when the others use homemade razor wheels because of design or fabrication preferences? (Why Maximum Velocity rather than BSA?)
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Nitro Dan
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Re: 2012 Line-Up

Post by Nitro Dan »

Actually that is the two daughters cars that you are referring to. Wheel choice between the cars isn't by preference. Most of these cars are Outlaw division cars while the daughter's cars (Catepiller and GS Uniform) are designed for the official Girl Scout races. Two different sets of rules, so two different styles of cars. The Girl Scout district we are with decided to use Max V kits as their official kits for their official race (this was primarily because the price was nearly a dollar cheaper by bulk than what BSA charges per kit and when you are buying 80 to100 kits, that is a significant savings). Their Outlaw rules allow any kind of tire to be used as long as the tires are no more than 1/2" wide and 1.5" in diameter. We choose the BSA wheels over using the Max V wheels for the Outlaw cars because the newer BSA wheels are lighter in weight from the start than the Max V wheels. This gives us a lighter wheel when shaving the wheel down, mostly due to the Max V wheel hubs being thicker than the newer BSA wheel hubs. If we come up with a more efficient way to reduce the size of the Max V hubs, then I'm theorizing it probably wouldn't matter which wheel we went with (unfortunately not yet ready to put out the funding for a micro lathe, which would probably give us the capability to do this).

-Nitro Dan
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FatSebastian
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Re: 2012 Line-Up

Post by FatSebastian »

Nitro Dan wrote:Actually that is the two daughters cars that you are referring to. Wheel choice between the cars isn't by preference.
:thumbup: Clearer... Thanks much!
Nitro Dan wrote:...the Max V wheel hubs being thicker than the newer BSA wheel hubs. If we come up with a more efficient way to reduce the size of the Max V hubs...
If it helps, the speed penalty from wheel rotation is mostly from the tread mass. This is because the energy required to spin up a wheel is proportional to its mass distribution (moment of inertia), rather than its mass. Mass MOI is computed as the integral (sum) of the mass times its radius squared relative to the axis of rotation. (Doc Jobe has a lecture on this computation.) Because the MOI radius term is squared, mass near the hub contributes very little to the energy lost by wheel rotation. That is, the radius is close to zero near the hub, and squaring a relatively small number makes it smaller still. Thus, the speed penalty from having slightly more massive hubs may not be as significant as one might first think.
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Nitro Dan
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Re: 2012 Line-Up

Post by Nitro Dan »

Neat! I like the Max V wheels much better than the BSA. Since the difference doesn't appear to be that much, I'm going to make a set of razor wheels from the Max V tires and give them a try next year. My wife has beaten me two years in a row now, so it's abouit time for me to make a come back! :)

-Nitro Dan
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FatSebastian
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Re: 2012 Line-Up

Post by FatSebastian »

Nitro Dan wrote:I like the Max V wheels much better than the BSA.
Let us know how the MV razors turn out!

I have also wondered if one could grip the wheel by the hub by chucking it (instead of using a mandrel) when making homemade razor wheels. If so, beefier hubs might hold an advantage.
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