Alternate Pinewood Derby Awards

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Da Graphite Kid
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Alternate Pinewood Derby Awards

Post by Da Graphite Kid »

I am co-chairman of our Pack's Pinewood Derby again this year. I like the idea of giving printed awards/certificates to the boys who have thought "outside the block" (or wedge) and designed and built unique and good looking pwd cars. Unfortunately, I have none, at this time, that I could print out for them. I found out that the person who is in charge of our District race is also in charge of his Pack's race and routinely hands out these types of awards every year at their Pack race. He has promised to share these but it has been six weeks so far and I have yet to receive anything from him. So... while others have posted about "Best of Show" and "Best Gas Milage" awards, let's hear of some others possible awards and if there is a way, please share the electronic file for these with all of us.

Others I've heard of:
Best Looking Automobile
Most Unusual Design
Fastest Lap (awarded to the racer who's car had the single fastest lap of the race)


Please include a description for the award if needed.


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Darin McGrew
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Re: Alternate Pinewood Derby Awards

Post by Darin McGrew »

You seem to be asking about two issues here, the physical award and the award categories. Anyway, here are a few of the ways we've done it.


trophies: Fastest Car, Best Design of Show
medals: 2nd through 4th Fastest Car, Best Automobile Design, Best Unusual Design, Best Finish & Detail

When we've used concensus among the judges to assign design awards with this system, we've also allowed the judges to create new categories for additional cars that deserve awards. Those categories have included "Most Nautical" and "Most Edible", in addition to "Most Creative" and the like.

When we've used a points-based scoring system to assign design awards with this system, we've assigned "Best Design of Show" first, then we've assigned "Best Automobile Design" and "Best Unusual Design" from the remaining cars, and then we've assigned "Best Finish & Detail" from the remaining cars. There is rarely any conflict between the top cars for "Best Automobile Design" and "Best Unusual Design", but it's common for the top cars to score highly for "Best Design of Show", either "Best Automobile Design" or "Best Unusual Design", and "Best Finish & Detail".


trophies: Fastest Car, Best Automobile Design, Best Unusual Design
medals: 2nd through 4th Fastest Car, Honorable Mention Design

If this system used concensus among the judges to assign design awards, then it could assign category names to the "Honorable Mention" awards, similar to the additional categories created by the judges in the previous system.


trophies: Fastest Car, Best Design
medals: 2nd through 4th Fastest Car, 2nd through 4th Best Design

This system tends to reward unusual designs, since automobile designs have to be extremely well-done to grab the judges' attention the way unusual designs do. We ended up with a couple kids being really disappointed when they discovered (at the derby itself) that there wasn't a separate "Best Automobile Design" category for their cars.


Also, some years we've had trophies for all the awards (one of the dads bought them for us), and some years we've had ribbons instead of medals. We always have either a participation ribbon or a derby patch (to sew on a uniform/sash) for everyone. And there are no design awards for the adults, and only a single first-place speed ribbon for the adults.
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Jungle Jim
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Re: Alternate Pinewood Derby Awards

Post by Jungle Jim »

darin_mcgrew wrote: Also, some years we've had trophies for all the awards (one of the dads bought them for us), and some years we've had ribbons instead of medals. We always have either a participation ribbon or a derby patch (to sew on a uniform/sash) for everyone. And there are no design awards for the adults, and only a single first-place speed ribbon for the adults.
Darin,
I glad to see that your Pack gives out a ribbon or patch to all participants and hopefully all Packs do.

Some other trophies I've seen awarded are:
Fastest Rookie
Best Theme - your Pack would have to pick one
Best Paint Job
Judges Choice
Giving a Scout coin to the first kid out
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TDean
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Re: Alternate Pinewood Derby Awards

Post by TDean »

My Pack holds races by individual dens, and then has a "Finals" race day, pitting all the den winners against each other. I always made up special awards for each member of my den (there were 11 boys in my den). I would distribute these awards immediately after our den's races.
One year I was able to pick up a bunch of medals on ribbons, and created my own designs (graphic designer, by trade) and pasted them on top. Last year, I made these awards on wooden "Blue Ribbon" shaped cut-outs (from a local hobby store -- less than $1 each), which I painted and then attached my designed labels (I can make a pdf of these designs if anyone would like to see them...).
Some awards were easy to place, but there are always a few boys who did not put the same amount of effort, or lacked the necessary time/skills/interest/whatever, to produce a competitive car -- either in Show or Go categories -- so I was always challenged to come up with something to award them for at least participating.
I came up with a bunch of "Awards" -- some were customized to a specific boy or car (such as the "11th Hour Award" for a boy who finished his car minutes before the race), others were fairly generic, and some were more for the boy, than the actual car (like the "Best Sportsmanship" or "Cub Scout Motto" Award). Anyway, the boys seemed to appreciate them (and the parents too...).
Some of my awards were:
MVP Award, Best of Show (duh), Fastest (ditto), 11th Hour Award, Golden Splinter Award, Webelos Award, Cub Scout Motto Award (Do Your Best), Cub Scout Spirit Award, Best Sportsmanship Award, Best Craftsman Award, Team Cheese Award (two cars that looked like cheese wedges -- came in 2nd and 3rd in races), Rookie of the Year Award (for a first-timer pitted against "veterans"), Judges Award -- I have also given out awards for the Hottest Car, Coolest Car, Toughest Car, Wildest Car and Cleverest.
Then there's my favorite: Most Likely to be Used as a Doorstop Award
(just kiddin...) :wink:
TDean
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Jungle Jim
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Re: Alternate Pinewood Derby Awards

Post by Jungle Jim »

TDean wrote: Then there's my favorite: Most Likely to be Used as a Doorstop Award
(just kiddin...) :wink:
That would be a great one to give out to a parent :!:
Jungle Jim
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