Talk:Pinewood derby/Archive 1

Bitter Point of View
I edited this a bit to take out redundant information and some apparent bitterness about adults that are too involved or judging that is unfair (Dad? Was that you?)

If this information should go in, maybe there should be a separate "controversy" section. Oddmountain 23:22, 23 March 2007 (UTC)oddmountain- oddmountain
 * I put back one of the deleted sentences and expanded while trying to keep the controversial/bitter aspect NPOV. --Kkmurray 00:49, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I think that works Oddmountain 23:22, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Universal Rules?
Some of the rules listed are worded so that they seem to apply to all BSA derbies. My understanding is that packs set their own rules. The local pack here does not allow any modifications to the wheels or axles for racing cars. Wheels may be modified if you are only entering the appearance competition. Am I mistaken about this? Oddmountain 23:30, 23 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I changed "most rules" to "some rules", which is all you can say without doing a survey. You are correct that rules are set on the pack or district level. The Virtual Cub Scout Leader Website has some good information on this. --Kkmurray 19:37, 24 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm more concerned about the "Car Modification" section, especially sentences like "wheel tread can be sanded or lathed and the inner surface of the hub can be coned to minimize the contact area between the hub and body." I realize it is saying that the wheels can physically be altered this way, but I think it also implies that they can legally be modified, which isn't always the case. I added a disclaimer sentence. 70.226.5.103 02:35, 25 March 2007 (UTC)Oddmountain

Electronics
The Pinewood Derby page does not touch on the revolution that has occured over the last 5 to 10 year in the use of electronics and computers for judging the racing in a fair and systematic way. I feel that the flavor of today's typical event could be noted without harming the basic ideas behind the event. Truth in packaging requires me to identify myself as a producer of such electronics (http://www.newdirections.ws). and it is not my intention to self-promote. However, the typical Pinewood Derby is conducted these days with electronic finish lines, derby management software, video projectors, audio, cameras, remote control starting, light trees, etc. I think that some reference to the state of the art should be in order. Shreff 01:21, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Feel free to add content. Input fitting with WP:NOT will be appreciated. --Kkmurray 05:02, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Advertisement
Looks like a bunch of advertising type material has crept in. This needs to be dug out quickly. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 16:22, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Other pine car races
Other than Awana races being called "Awana Grand Prix", does anybody have any information on what the races held by Royal Ambassadors or Royal Rangers are called? Or what about any other groups that have similar races? If there is enough material available, I'll split this out into a separate, more generic article about pine car racing. Otherwise, I'll just leave it as bullet points at the bottom of this article. Joe 14:31, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Royal Rangers uses the term "Pinewood Derby". It is on all of our official merchandise that comes from our national headquarters. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bubbabear (talk • contribs) 15:23, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Pinewood Derby - not just in America
We have Pinewood Derby here in Britain too - would be nice if the article could be edited to make it less US-centric. DuncanHill (talk) 11:38, 11 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Is it actually called pinewood derby? Do you have any references?  --——  Gadget850 (Ed)  talk  -  11:47, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Well my Cubs have done it! I'll have an ask about. DuncanHill (talk) 13:31, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Pinewood derby is a trademark of the BSA; if TSA has it by a different name, we can certainly add it to the Other races section. --——  Gadget850 (Ed)  talk  -  14:01, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It was called "Pinewood Derby", was run for the District by a couple of leaders at another Group. DuncanHill (talk) 14:03, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

'Pinewood derby' or 'Pinewood Derby'?

 * This is an article about the Boy Scouts of America. In addition to standard style guides, the official BSA style guide Language of Scouting is also used. The name pinewood derby is in lower case except when referring to a specific event. This is in line with other major style guides. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 12:29, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
 * (I moved this message from my user talk page. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 16:23, 10 December 2009 (UTC))
 * Thanks for the move back. For those wondering about the capitalization guidelines, see the Manual of Style for Scouting-related articles: SCOUTMOS --Kkmurray (talk) 16:32, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the link, but I'm not sure I understand why we are allowing Boy Scout usage to determine our policies on Wikipedia. "Pinewood Derby" is clearly a proper noun, which in English are invariably capitalized. I have no intention of pursuing this any farther, just wanted to make my opinion known. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:07, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

There seems to be some confusion over proper noun. From the article proper noun: Proper nouns (also called proper names) are nouns representing unique entities (such as London, Jupiter or Johnny), as distinguished from common nouns which describe a class of entities (such as city, planet or person).

Pinewood derby would be a proper noun if it were a unique event, but there are hundreds of derbies every year; therefor only specific events are capitalized, such as 2009 Valley District Pinewood Derby.

The Boy Scouts of America has a formal style guide that codifies common usage within the context of the BSA and is compliant with other style guides— see The Language of Scouting for more guidance. As a comparison, you would not capitalize Christmas parade or homecoming dance unless referring to specific events.

---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 12:06, 11 December 2009 (UTC)


 * As I said, I'm not pursuing this, but, please, there's absolutely no confusion here whatsoever about proper nouns, and "Pinewood Derby" is one. The Boy Scouts seem to want to have it both ways: i.e. they want to control the use of the expression, but deal with it as if it is a generic description, like "Christmas parade", which it isn't. It's a specific implementation of what might be called "gravity-controlled wood car races" if we were looking for a general description -- which we don't have to do, because we have this very nice specific term, "Pinewood Derby". For-profit corporations risk losing their trademarks if they don't take steps to protect them from becoming generic descriptions, eg. "Kleenex" for facial tissues and "Coke" for any cola.  The Boy Scouts apparently want to both protect the term and control its use, and at the same time have it masquerade as a generic by formalizing a non-capitalized usage. But even so, and whatever their purpsoe in doing so, I continue to fail to see why Wikipedia should be bound by their druthers, since we're not affiliated in any way with the Boy Scouts, and not beholden to their internal style book. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:03, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Low doorstops
The following sentence is adorned with the dreaded "citation needed" tag: "The fastest cars tend to resemble low doorstops, with weight at the rear."

I was a Cub Scout a long time ago, and I seem to remember cars such as these winning, but is this generally true, or is it merely one person's original research? (Or both?) Kansan (talk) 07:16, 25 January 2011 (UTC)


 * The sentence is original research. My own original research shows that the wedge design is popular because it is easy to make and add weights with a rear bias; axle alignment is easy as is changing the axle hole positions. It looks cool and the wind resistance is reasonable. Most cars resemble doorstops period. --Kkmurray (talk) 14:46, 25 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Wedge is probably a better term, as a doorstop can take several shapes. Do need a source that states they are faster. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 15:00, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Tracks
Does anyone have the time to right a section on how the tracks are built? This site might be a good place to start ... --evrik (talk) 17:47, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
 * http://www.rahul.net/mcgrew/derby/track

Cub Scout Pinewood Derby Pamphlet
Looks like there is an official. This might be a good reference. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 13:08, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I will add it in. --evrik (talk) 17:54, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Wood car racing
There was a lot of content building up about other events, so I split that to wood car racing. --  Gadget850talk 16:12, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Opinion of the pictures illustrating the article
The pictures in the article are very good, but I think that they fail to communicate what an ordinary pinewood derby car looks like. One picture has a collection of more-or-less ordinary cars, but these are very small. In my opinion the "main" picture in the infobox should be something that looks like it was made by an ordinary kid. ike9898 (talk) 19:52, 7 November 2018 (UTC)