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Pinewood Derby Car Design
Ideas |
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This is a pinewood derby design idea guide to help you design your own cool, unique car.
This guide
that takes you through a design process and presents over 100 pinewood derby car design ideas. Whether you
are building a pinewood derby car for a Cub Scouts race,
Awana Grand Prix, Royal Rangers, WIRL or any other pine
wood derby organization, you need to start your car
design with an idea. |
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Car design is one of
the more fun parts of pinewood derby. You can design a
creative, funny type of car or a super slick racer. I
suggest letting your (or your child’s) imagination work
before narrowing down to something you can actually
build. The steps below will guide you to through the
Pinewood derby design
phase. |
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| Before you start |
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If you are building
a car with a child, be sure to let them do as much as
possible. The more they do, the more they will get out
of it. The design stage is a great way to get them
engaged in the project. Have fun brainstorming car
designs. Let your child be creative coming up with
whacky ideas before picking your final car
design. |
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| Pinewood Derby Car Design Idea
Themes |
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Every year I always started our
pinewood project by asking my son, “What is your design
“theme” for this year?” (Aside from “Dad, let’s make it
fast”!). A theme got him thinking and usually helped me
look for ideas in the area he was interested
in. |
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My son usually gave me simple design
ideas like, “I want a bubble on top”. Another year he
wanted grooves on the sides to “channel the airflow”.
Still another year he wanted a "tapered look so it was
aerodynamic". Once again, it is important to try to
incorporate the child's ideas into the car design so
they feel good about it. And yes, one car had a bubble,
another had air channels behind the wheels and the third
was aerodynamic. |
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Oh, don’t worry too much about making
a car design that is not aerodynamic. Pinewood Derby
cars are not going fast enough, nor long enough for
aerodynamics to affect speed in any way. It is far more
important to have fun designing a unique car. The most important speed factors are from high performance wheels, polished speed axles, weight placement and
the other 40+ speed improvements you can find in (See Winning
Pinewood Derby Secrets). |
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Your child may want a design theme
like a military theme, animal theme, cartoon theme, race
car theme, or “something totally cool and different.”
The table below lists about 100 pinewood derby car
design ideas that will help you select a design theme
for your pine wood derby car. Something should jump out
at you from this design list. If not, then email me your car
design and I'll add it to this list. Better yet, email me a picture
of your car and I'll add it to our picture
gallery. |
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Pinewood Car Design Idea
Theme |
Pinewood Derby Car
Ideas |
| Cartoon
or Fantasy Derby Cars |
Spider-man, Batmobile, Superman, Pokemon, The
Flash, Inferno,
Hulk, batmobile
derby plan or batmobile
kit, Green Hornet |
| Military pinewood derby cars |
Humvee, plane, or
rocket, cruise missile, Army Tanksword, knife, bazooka,
nuclear submarine, battleship, fighter plane,
space shuttle, Army Truck, |
| Bug cars |
spider,
scorpion, ladybug (for girls), ant, praying
mantis, beetle |
| Animal derby cars |
snake, lizard,
cheetah,
lion, rhino, lynx, fox, shark, dolphin, rabbit,
turtle, Whale |
| Trucks, busses and trains, or emergency vehicles |
police
car, firetruck, tanker truck or a pine wood
log truck, school bus, train |
| Race
cars |
NASCAR,
Formula
One, funnycars,
drag racers,
street
rods, Grand Prix |
| Food
Car |
Hotdog,
banana, strawberry, grapes, canolli,
pizza slice, red hot chili pepper, asparagus, coke
bottle, Swiss Cheese |
| Objects |
Pencil, redwood
tree |
| Radiation
and Destruction |
lightening bolt, radiation, cross bones, skull,
rotton
tooth, bloodshot eyeballs, Hearse, |
| Patriotic |
Flag,
firecracker, American Eagle, Abe Lincoln,
Soldier, world trade towers, liberty bell,
statue of liberty |
| Cub
Scout Cars |
Tiger,
Bear, Wolf, Cub Scout |
| Sports |
Baseball bat,
hockey stick, Olympic torch, arrows, snowboard,
Skateboard, ski |
| Non-car
car designs |
Toothbrush, pencil,
peanut, fire hydrant, rope, dollar bill, clothes
pin, cactus, tree stump, comb, candle, key |
| Funny or
comical cars |
Sponge Bob Square Pants, Spam car, smiley
car, toilet paper, cigar, dirty sock, clam
car |
| Girl
scout themes |
Flowers, candy
cane, hearts, shamrock, dove, girl
power car, seahorse, unicorn, Pink Nike Horse, Cat, Dog, horse, turtle |
| Symbols |
Olympic torch,
Arrow, Spear |
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| Other places to
look for car design ideas |
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| Sketch Your Car |
| Once you have settled on the car design
theme it is time to draw. The drawing stage is also fun
and creative for a child. You can let them draw freehand
or take the pine wood block and trace it on a piece of
paper. Trace the side view and the top view so you get
an idea of what it will look like from each angle. |
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| Pinewood Car Design – What NOT
to do! |
| Inevitably, my son would choose a design
that was too complicated (eg, the Batmobile!) Unless you
are a master craftsman (or real good with a dremel),
your imagination can be much greater than what you can
actually build. |
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| At this point you need to scale the
design back to something you feel can be done in the
time you have available. One alternative to save time is
to purchase a pre-cut pine car that has lots of wood on
it. Most of the cutting has already been done, like the
stock car from pinewood pro, but you can still modify it
to your custom design. |
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| Finalizing your Pine wood Car
Design |
| When you have the final car design
picked, you should again draw the top and side view on a
piece of paper. You can then use this drawing as a
template to cut the pine block. To create the cutting
template, cut out the car design that you drew on paper,
place it on the side of the pine block and trace it on
the block. Do the same for both sides and the top of the
block. You can then cut out your cool car design along
the lines that you drew on the block. |
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| Pinewood Derby Design Made
Easy |
| If you don’t want to start from scratch,
the following will help you design your pine car faster.
They are ordered from fast-easy-simple to do-it-yourself
experts. |
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Pinewood Derby
Help |
What is does for
you |
What it
offers |
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- Saves lots of
time
- Just lightly sand and you
are ready to paint
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Choose from Stock Car, Sport
Coupe, Speedway Racer, Street Car, Cheetah, Axe
Blade Racer |
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How to build your car step by step
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Can also be called, “pinewood derby
for dummies”
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Pinewood derby
beginner’s guide, includes a bonus section on
Essential Speed Tips, plus three cut-out car
design templates |
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- Guides you though the car build process with
step-by-step Illustrations in
3D rendered images.
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How-to build it
yourself pinewood car design plans. Choose from
The Inferno, The
Flash, The Spider, Police Car, Green Hornet,
and Star fighter, and over a dozen more! |
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- How to design your derby car for speed
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Contains a
pinewood derby car design guide plus my complete
list of over 40 winning speed secrets to make
you the next
winner! |
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| Time Management |
| Consider combining the above options to
save time. For example, you could save time by
purchasing a car design plan (or pre-cut car) and
putting your time into making your car go fast by
following the tips in Winning Pinewood Derby
Secrets. |
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| I hope this pinewood derby car design
guide helps you. |
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| When you have your cool car design,
please send
a picture so we can add your car to our
Pinewood Pro Pinewood
Derby Car Picture Gallery! |
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| If you found this Pinewood derby
design guide helpful, please consider linking
to this page so others may benefit. |
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If you like our pinewood
derby help for car design,
please consider a link
exchange with Pinewood Pro so
other racers can
benefit too... |
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Linking to Pinewood Pro is
easy! |
| Just copy and paste
the following into your website |
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| Pinewood Derby Car
Supersite – You can build a winning
pinewood derby car with our polished axles, lathed
wheels, design plans plus full line of speed products
and free how-to guides, tips, pinewood derby car drivers
license, award certificates and more! |
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| To link your site with Pinewood
Pro: |
1. email
the pinewood pro link you added to your
site
2. include your site
information and we will add your site to Pinewood Pro
favorite links. |
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Linking is as easy as
that! | |
