Cheating at Pinewood Derby / Looking for advice

[mrbertelsen 10]

The rules will be changed for next years event.

I am looking for advice on how to handle the problem from this year.

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At our Pinewood Derby one boy "stuffed" the ballot box for best design with his own car number.

 

At the same time ballot counters from the PWD committee not knowing about the stuffing overrode the ballot counts to limit the number of trophys one boy could earn. The boy that cheated ended up winning one of the trophies for best design as a result.

 

I intend to speak privately to the boy with his parents and see what he has to say. If he admits guilt I plan to tell him only that he would of won without cheating and allow him to keep the tropy. I don't support cheating but I can't teach someone not to cheat if they are shamed out of the pack.

But at the same time:

"there are no 'little' acts of dishonesty. A person who is dishonest in small things will most likely be dishonest in the more important matters. A person who does even the smallest things with integrity will do the same in more important matters."

Indeed this is one of those small matters.

I think it is a great opportunity for a life-lesson.

 

Looking for comments and advice,

Thanks,

 

MRB-543

[VentureScoutNY 10]

Interesting. That is sad that had to happen. Where exactly was the ballot box and who was in charge of it? The only advice I would give is to keep the ballot box at a specific table where adults can oversee who is putting what in the box.

 

I too would want to discuss this with both the scout and the parents. Keep us updated on what happens.

[evmori 11]

Eliminate the voting method. Try to get some people from your district (DE, Activities chair, UC, etc.) to come to your Pinewood and judge these categories. Make sure the cars are not identified in any way with the Cubs/Webelos during the judging.

 

Ed Mori

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

[Twocubdad 665]

Someone could write their PhD thesis on the Psychology and Psychosis of Pinewood Derbies.

 

I think the conversation with the boy is a good idea and would probably leave it at that. If he is moved to return the trophy or do something more, fine, but if you've made your point, I wouldn't press it.

 

We had a similar ballot stuffing problem two years ago. We fortunately caught it early on, threw out all the ballots and started voting over. The whole thing was handled with a very somber Cubmaster's Minute to close the meeting. Now we make sure to announce that you can only vote once and have an adult hand out the ballots one at a time.

 

Sort of a funny counterpoint to that: this year we had one Cub with a really, really cool car. Everyone ooohed and aaaahed over the car and it was pretty much a slam dunk for the design trophy. But the kid who owned it over-played his hand. While in line for the voting, he was politicking for votes, saying stuff like "Wow, that's a really cool car. I'm voting for it," all the while pretending that it wasn't his car. As things often happen in the jungle and on the playground, retribution was swift. The other boys took offense at his tactics and blackballed him. He only got one vote. His own.

 

At the same time, the voting for the best Wolf car was very close -- an eight-way tie for first. Every single kid voted for his own car. Secretly, we grabbed a committee of disinterested parents who broke the tie. You gotta love those Wolves!

[Marty_Doyle 10]

WIth this year's Pinewod Deby rules, I attached a copy of a newspaper article (I may have gotten the link from this list) where one PWD car broke open and spilled mercury - added inside the car body to change the center of gravity as the car moved down the track - all over the school gym.

It pointed out to parents the somewhat absurd levels some people go to for a $4.95 plastic trophy.

 

As for design, we award a first-second-third medal in each rank, and a first-second-third trophy for the Pack. After much heated discussion in the Leader's meeting, it was agreed that there would be no limitation on how many awards a boy could win. The initial proposal was if a boy placed in the top three in the pack, then he would give up his den award, and the Scouts in the den would all move up a spot, with a new third place award.

 

This year, we invited the Scoutmasters and Boys Scouts from each of the three troops in town to the PWD. Mainly as a recruiting/publici relations visit. But we asked the Boy Scouts to form the judging committee for the design awards.

 

I was an observer only in their deliberations. About halfway through their voting, they started to eliminate or downgrade certain cars, because the Cub Scout couldn't have done that. I ponted out that a PWD was supposed to be a joint effort between dad and son. Their response back was that there should be progressively more involvement by the Cub Scout (and less by Dad) at each level. The best looking car came in fourth (and it was bviously done mostly by Dad). Most of these Boy Scoputs were somewhat younger, and therefore closer to Cubbing and PWD. Some more (delayed) retribution?

 

Having uninvolved external judges voting "double-blind" (the Boy Scouts voted by car number, and didn't know who they were voting for) forestalled what would have been a lot of complaining and criticism in previous years.

 

Every Cub Scout got a patch, a ribbon, and a participant certificate. This also lessens the "competitive juices" for a lot of boys.

[fotoscout 15]

Boys will be Boys!! If youre going do the ballot thing, you need to have adequate controls over it. Im not surprised to hear that this happened. Id let it go, unless you can prove that this was something beyond a young boys mischievous behavior.

 

We had a boy two years ago that won the whole event. His car went like lightning, and he was a Tiger. A few months later he was at my house playing with my son and blurted out that his dad bought his Pinewood Derby car because he didnt have time to make it with him. As it turned out, this was a precision made built to run car, and it cleaned house!!! Of course my son heard the boy make this announcement and promptly told him that he cheated. The story circulated faster then his car.

 

The kids Dad is the head coach for a Div II College football team, you'd think he would know something about fairness!

(This message has been edited by fotoscout)

[JimmyD 10]

"At the same time, the voting for the best Wolf car was very close -- an eight-way tie for first. Every single kid voted for his own car. Secretly, we grabbed a committee of disinterested parents who broke the tie. You gotta love those Wolves!"

 

I like that becuase everybody wins!

 

Anyways when we have judging for essays, and cub mobiles we usually have 3 people from the committe who aren't parents of the sons/relatives do it that way no complaining.

 

Something does need to be said. What your saying would be good. Good stop him now for little stuff.

[scoutldr 732]

Mercury! I have two questions: how did the car pass the weigh-in and were the parents billed for the hazardous waste spill cleanup? Or is the mercury still in the school probably spread all over with the wet mops? This is a serious health hazard.

 

Back to the original question...how about recruiting your affiliated BS Troop and/or Venture crew to do the judging? No better way to get Cubs excited about the programs to come!(This message has been edited by scoutldr)

[Bob White 20]

Have pre-printed ballots and only give a scout one ballot as he checks in his car. Then as each ballot is returned check the scouts name off on the registration list.

 

 

[Marty_Doyle 10]

scoutldr

Here is the article, from the Lawrence, Kansas Journal-World:

 

Derby crash exposes mercury, cheater

 

Cub Scout's father blamed for incident that closed school, cost $5,000 to clean up

By Mike Belt, Journal-World

 

Sunday, January 25, 2004

Scouts' honor went out the window at the annual Pinewood Derby race trials conducted by Cub Scout Pack 3072.

Somebody cheated.

During practice runs Friday evening prior to the competition at Quail Run School, one of the racers crashed and a vial of liquid mercury placed inside the car broke apart, splashing the toxic material on the floor, putting as many as 70 Cub Scouts and their parents at risk and prompting a lengthy cleanup.

Pre-race trials were stopped and the derby set for Saturday in the school's commons area was postponed.

"This was something that shouldn't have happened," said Bruce Eggers, Cub Scout pack leader.

No one would confirm who owned the pinewood car weighted with mercury intended to give it an edge on the downhill race course, but they are placing the blame on the Scout's father -- not the Scout.

"I think he's suffering the consequences," Eggers said of the parent.

Pinewood Derby cars are carved from a small block of wood. The pack's rules say that mercury and other liquids can't be used to add weight to the cars. The cars, subject to a five-ounce limit, are weighed before the race.

"It's too bad when a parent takes it to this extreme to win," said Larry Sinks, whose

7-year-old son, Mike, was planning to enter the race.

"I didn't like it," Mike Sinks said. "I was looking forward to it. I painted my car to

look like (NASCAR racer) Robby Gordon's car."

"I think it's a shame," said Kent Houk, who

worked with his 7-year-old son, Coleman, on

their car. "I'm sure there are lot of kids

disappointed."

About 70 Scouts made cars for the derby, Eggers

said, and they and their parents shuffled in and

out of the school throughout the evening before

the event was suspended.

Lawrence-Douglas County Fire & Medical

personnel were called to the school to contain

the mercury spill, which reportedly amounted to

about an ounce, Eggers said.

Parents and Scouts who had been at the school

and gone home were called and asked to bring

back the shoes they had worn so they could be

tested. Only one of the pairs of shoes was

thought to be contaminated enough not to be

returned to the owner, Eggers said.

From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Haz-Mat

Response Inc. of Olathe cleaned the commons'

tile floor, used gauges to test the air and

vacuum fans to clear out the air, said Tom

Bracciano, director of operations and facility

planning for Lawrence public schools.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment also had a representative at the school to monitor the cleanup.

KDHE and school officials will test the air in the

school again today to make sure there is no

trace of mercury. If, as expected, the building is clear, classes will be conducted Monday in the school at 1130 Inverness Drive, Bracciano said.

Gary Clapp, a chemist who has children attending Quail Run, said he was a bit concerned about the spill, but added that cleanup crews probably would do a good job.

"The only way it can be dangerous is if it is ingested through the skin or inhaled," Clapp said.

Mercury, a silvery, dense metallic liquid commonly used in thermometers, thermostats and switches, is considered toxic to the human nervous system.

When liquid mercury is spilled, it forms droplets that can accumulate in the tiniest spaces, then emit vapors into the air.

The cost of cleaning up the mercury at the school will be about $5,000, Bracciano said. The school district will foot the bill. He said he didn't know whether the district would try to recoup the cost.

"I don't think it's the (Scout) group's fault," Bracciano said.

Eggers said he was not aware of a similar event in the pack. The Scout whose car contained the mercury will be allowed to enter the derby when it is rescheduled.

[mrbertelsen 10]

Thanks to all fellow scouters for your valuable input.

I have spoken with the boy and his father.

Here are the facts.

a. He voted before the rules were explained.

b. He took the liberty of voting by proxy for family members for a total of 4 votes.

c. Including the proxy votes the total number of votes for his car was 7.

d. The ballot counters overode the actual counts to distribute the trophys more evenly. This was agreed upon by the PWD committee.

e. There were other boys who also stuffed the box.

f. The ballot box was not monitored.

 

My decision is the boy will keep the trophy.

There was no intent to win at all costs in his story. I keep saying the point of the PWD is that a scout and his parent(s) spend time together to build and race a car. That goal was achieved. But there is another great truth about the PWD that must be stated.

 

Some will participate with integrity.

Some will make mistakes that don't matter.

And some will try to win at any costs.

But no matter the mix of participants some will win and some will lose.

We adults all know we must prepare our kids for that fact of life.

The PWD is a great analogy to convey that information to a cub scout stessing that the choice of integrity is best.

 

Yours in Scouting,

Mike-543

 

 

[Fat Old Guy 11]

If you decide to stick with voting in the future I have some suggestions.

 

Control the ballots in some way.

 

Get a number of rolls of the "Keep this stub" tickets in different colors. Give each person who comes in one ticket of each color to vote for different things ("Best design", "funniest," etc.). No replacement ballots if they claim that they lost theirs.

 

Print up ballots on a sheet with one line for each category. Pass out the ballots when they come through the door. Let them mark the ballots with all choices and then drop it into the ballot box. Again, no replacements.

 

 

[OneHour 11]

In our Pack we try hard to avoid this type of controversy. We usually have all the cars checked in a week in advance (lube and clearance). We required that each Den provides one parent to judge. At the day of judging, we line up 90+ cars and start to group them into categories, best use of figures, best use of decals, best use of tripes, sleekest cars, fastest looking cars, wedgies, most likely to be all boy made (got very controversal one year), best red rocket, most patriotic, and the list goes on depending on the type of cars that we get. We then place 6-8 cars in each category and rank them in order. Everyone gets a ribon! The parent who son's car happens to be in the category that is being voted on abstains from voting. We have done that for the past 6 years and no one has complained ... yet!

 

At the race, we have 1-3 at each rank level and 1-5 overall for fastest average time. No one goes home crying. This past PWD, our auto gate/timer broke, so we went to a single elimination. That was well received. We got the gate/timer fixed and reran the races at our pwd chair home and got the top 3 for each rank. The results came out almost the same as the single elimination except for 2 anomalies.

 

1Hour(This message has been edited by OneHour)

[KoreaScouter 13]

It sounds more like creative use of the rules than cheating, if he did it before they were explained, and only proxy voted for his family -- I assume they'd vote for his car anyway, and it's not exactly "stuffing the ballot box", unless the ballot box is an Altoids tin. On the other hand, what the committee did by "throwing out the ballots" provides the real life lesson, and not a positive one, either. The message I'd get is "why bother voting; some brahmins will just engineer the outcome, anyway".

 

There's plenty of hijinks associated with PWDs; the rules designed to thwart the scoundrels have gotten more complicated as a result. Designing heats and brackets, getting the track and timer working, checking in cars, and channeling all that fatherly testosterone is complicated enough. Why make it worse with ballots that introduce another way to pull a scam? How about having disinterested 3rd parties look over the cars the night before, pick the non-race-result award winners, get the ribbons filled out, and concentrate on racing on race day?

 

KS