Re: Pinewood Derby Winning
Rick Clements (rickcl@POGO.WV.TEK.COM)
Thu, 30 Jun 1994 17:09:57 PDT
From: Douglas Flewelling <dougf@GROUSE.UMESVE.MAINE.EDU>
Doug mentions fast lanes and being eliminated. We rotate the cars though
the different lanes. We also don't use double elimination any more.
The problem we had wasn't poor sports. The boys who were eliminated
early got bored and found alternate forms of entertainment.
}During the awards each boy received a ribbon with a "win" in some category
}such as "Most likely to eat another car" (my son made his into a shark).
I've tried to encourage this, but neither the Pinewood derby or Space
derby committees were interested. We do give 1st, 2nd, 3rd and
participated ribbons.
}Next year I will suggest that we localize the competition to either dens or
We localize the competition to age level. (Some ages have more than
one den.) We also have an open class. The open class is for adults
who want to build a car or rocket. It also helps to keep the siblings
occupied.
I agree that compitition is good unless it's over done.
This year I went with my son's class (5th graders) to the Drug Free
Jamboree. They had a number of non-competive games organized. (The
games didn't have an anti-drug message. They seamed to be intended as
just a fun break.) This was held on
a track at a near by High School. The boys and girls (from all the
groups) kept organizing races. They would like up one per lane. The
winner was recognized with an I won to their friends. Then the next
group would take a turn. (The self organizing looked similar to the
protocol for playing the video game displays in stores.)
I noticed two things that were interesting to me.
1) Children of that age have a preference for games with winners and
loosers weather they won or lost.
2) They've seamed to have learned at least one positive thing from
playing video games.
Terry Howerton Sakima Group, Inc. SCOUTER Magazine Kansas City | 
