AWANA Grand Prix 2012 Winners

Show off your cool vehicle designs and track burning speedsters!
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ciodude
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AWANA Grand Prix 2012 Winners

Post by ciodude »

My girls represented the family well at the AWANA Grand Prix again this year. My oldest girl aged out of T&T, so I only had the three youngest ones racing this year. But my wife (with a little bit of help) built her first ever derby racer.

First up was my 2nd oldest girl, age 10, who made herself water skiing (since she learned how earlier this summer). She used some colored string and actually wove the tow line. She placed 1st in design for the T&T Girls.

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Next came one of the twins (age 7) who entered “Lucy the Airedale” in memory of Aunt Lisa’s one dog, who passed away very recently. She won 2nd in speed and 3rd in design for the Sparks Girls. We were almost ready to cut her block to make a Girl Scout Hiking Racer, her first design choice, (kind of a part 2 racer for her Girl Scout camping/campfire racer last year) when she changed her mind. I wasn’t 100% sure the starting peg would hit the nose of the dog face so I crafted a piece of clear plastic on the bottom to make sure it was all legal and fair. (It turns out it was totally unnecessary)

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Then I had the other of the twins with her crazy giraffe racer (think Melman from Madagascar). She cleaned house and won 1st place in speed and 1st place in design for Sparks Girls. Her design took me the longest to figure out how I was going to cut it.

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After eight plus years or so of making cars for Cub Scouts and AWANA, I finally talked my wife into making one. Her design choice was Dug from the Pixar movie, Up. She said she’s make one if I found her a sound chip that would make it say “…because I love you!” a line from the movie and a current running joke in our family. I found a chip she could record the sound on, but she chose to do a removable paper “bubble” and make the racer anyway. She was the only adult leader who made a racer and she raced with all the little Cubbies (the youngest of the AWANA groups in our Club, who can make cars and race them, but are noncompetitive and just receive participation medals).

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So there you have our 2012 AWANA Grand Prix Family of Racers! Full sized pictures can be seen at this link: https://picasaweb.google.com/1020577976 ... dPrix2012#
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Re: AWANA Grand Prix 2012 Winners

Post by Speedster »

Congratulations on all the wins. The cars look beautiful. I clicked on the line to see the cars in a bigger version but it said, sorry, the page was not found. Is there some other way I can see the cars?
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ciodude
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Re: AWANA Grand Prix 2012 Winners

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Sorry about that Speedster, I had the Picasa settings messed up. They should be publically viewable now. I have even added some different views as well.
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Darin McGrew
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Re: AWANA Grand Prix 2012 Winners

Post by Darin McGrew »

Wow! What a wonderful collection of creative designs! Thanks for sharing.
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Re: AWANA Grand Prix 2012 Winners

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Great cars !! Great pictures !! Love the skier.
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ciodude
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Re: AWANA Grand Prix 2012 Winners

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Thanks all. I encourage my daughters to be creative. It then becomes my challenge to work that vision they have into a workable derby car design. They know they have to draw me pictures of what they want (top/side/front/back) and that we have to sit down and talk about it. They, more so than my son, have never felt constrained to build something that looks like an actual “car.” The water skier, representing my daughter, is one of those little wooden figures you can get at Michaels Arts & Crafts or A.C. Moores. She worked hard to paint the figure, put the hair on it and to attach the arms and make the braided tow rope. The wooden people have figured pretty predominantly in the kids designs. The first racers I ever helped the girls build were a lady bug and a dragon fly. We used the little people figures to make lady bug and drag fly "drivers" (complete with gold foil princess crowns) I also thought we’d end up with an “Aunt Lisa” driver for the Lucy the Airedale racer, but my daughter decided against it. I was impressed that my one 7 year old had the patience to paint all those individual giraffe spots (with the exception of about an inch of the neck).

I help run the AWANA Grand Prix workshops and I just love the creativeness of the kids. Back when I was a Cub Master, I put together a three ring binder of photos of types of derby racers and organized it by types – shape/car/object/animal/food/etc. Seven, eight years later, it’s a little worse for wear, but I still drag it out for the AWANA kids to look through for ideas. Sometimes the requests are too much (too complex or too time consuming) and we have to pare them back. This year, in addition to the traditional car designs, we had a stag beetle, whale, tiger, snow man, pirate ship, a warhead, Twix bar, skate board, a Monopoly car, a PollyPocket beach scene, a beach house, two pinewood derby tracks, an angel, a piano and a shape that looked like a jeweled BeDazzler blew up all over it. I get a kick and a thrill seeing them all race because I helped cut about half of them.

I had hoped to get my Ben10 Rustbucket (from a GMC Motorhome Club derby kit) ready to race in the Gran Prix, but Sandy and a water filled basement kinda put a stop to that plan.
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whodathunkit
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Re: AWANA Grand Prix 2012 Winners

Post by whodathunkit »

Cool looking cars.. each and every one True Winners! ;)
What type of automobile can be spelled the same forwards & backwards?
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having_wandered
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Re: AWANA Grand Prix 2012 Winners

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That giraffe is killing me! Love this pic:

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great job!
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ciodude
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Re: AWANA Grand Prix 2012 Winners

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Glad you like it, having_wandered! The idea was all my one 7 year olds. My job is just to help them see that idea expressed in the wood (and googly eyes and foam and pipe cleaners, etc). Like I said before, working with my four girls has been way more challenging than my son, because I literally have no clue what might come out when I ask the question, “What do you want to make for an AWANA racer this year?”
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having_wandered
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Re: AWANA Grand Prix 2012 Winners

Post by having_wandered »

I have to admit I was surprised to see it won speed too. Leave it to the girls to buck conventions! My youngest daughter wants an aerodynamic fast car and my oldest daughter wants a platter of cupcakes.
My son is defintely proving to be a boy- his first car was a Firetruck, his next will be a Police car.

Our Awana officials decided not to award both speed and design 1st place to the same car. Want to spread the trophies around I guess.
~Not all who wander are lost.
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ciodude
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Re: AWANA Grand Prix 2012 Winners

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At our AWANA club, the design awards are done by members of the church hierarchy, not the AWANA officials. The Commander disavows all knowledge of who won the design awards until he actually opens the envelope with the winners for each club. If you want to be judged for design, you actually have to turn your car in a week earlier then if you are just racing for speed. My girls have won combinations of speed and design (for the same racer) for the past 4 years. I haven’t gotten any negative feedback on that, I suppose my running the design and build workshops and having helped cut and put wheels on more than half the cars racing shows folks I’m always willing to share my knowledge.

Ooooo cupcakes.. that sounds like a good one! I haven’t done any ‘food’ racers yet. I will have to consider that. Hmmmm the Cub Scout Pine Wood derby is in a few months….
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