Luck and Derbies

Last night was the Cub Scouts Space Derby. It was the last pack meeting for logan before he has his birthday and is out of Webelos.

I'd like to say that we worked really hard on his spaceship... but.. well... we didn't. The night before, we remembered that we needed to build it. Trevor was sick and asleep in bed, so it was just Logan and me.

Having never seen a space derby before, I felt completely lost. We watched a few youtube videos on how to assemble the thing, and then we went to town building it.

Then we went to bed.

The next morning, I was editing pictures in my room, and Logan decided to show Samantha what we had built. Unfortunately, these spaceships have parts that can fall out very easily. Long story short, logan lost a very vital piece to his spaceship.

*sigh

We looked for the lost piece all day, but couldn't find it. Luckily I had some wood that was just the right size, so about 20 minutes before the derby, we cut it out and notched it and made it work. Also, we didn't have time to paint it, so Logan used a black sharpie to add a little zest to it.

At the derby Logan won his first match-up.

Then his second!

And in the end, the very last race was Logan against this boy whose rocket was really fast, but not as fast as Logan's.

He won!!!!

He finally won something!!!

I'm convinced these things are all just luck. I don't know what we did to make the rocket so fast.

But just in case you ever have a space derby and want to copy us, here's what we did: carve it a lot. Keep carving until it's really round. Make sure your wings are balanced and straight. Don't paint it. Resist the urge to wind it up and try it out. Every time you wind it, it stretches the rubber bands out and it won't go as far the next time.