Pinewood Derby Program
Manufacturers of Pinewood Derby Track. Lightweight and easy to assemble. We also make electronic timers and race management software. Our Pinewood Derby Tracks are of the highest quality and backed by our 3 year warranty. Lake Minnetonka and Mustang District Pinewood Derby Finals 2019 at Ridgedale Center - FREE! Saturday, March 16, 2019. The BSA provides a program for young people that builds character, trains them in the responsibilities of participating citizenship, and develops personal fitness.
- Tracks up to four lanes registering the times via the microcontroller chip. The times are read within one thousandths of a second and displayed on the computers monitor. Many computers can display their images on an auxiliary TV screen or overhead Projector (a big plus).
- The program will rotate players through all available Lanes, thus helping to eliminate any lane handicaps. The Roster is also Randomly selected when the Schedule is initially created. It also will try and have at least three racers per heat if possible. (ex. if there are 10 racers, instead of 3 heats of 4, 4 and 2 it will create 3 heats of 4, 3 and 3).
- The program offers any number of divisions (classes) to be created by you, one of which is then assigned to each participant. The Racing Roster is thus created by selecting one or multiples of these classes or you can select 'All Classes' to accept all active players.
- Program offers many reports generated in real-time from the on going race event showing Best Times, Average Times, Cumulative Times, Cumulative Points, Individual Times, Global Rating, Finish Positions and more. Any of these can be printed.
- Using the same Roster, any number of unique Race Events can be Scheduled and preserved using different Classes.
- All completed Race files (closed) can be viewed or printed at anytime. Also several completed files can be merged and viewed together.
- An important factor is that this hardware is connected to the computer via the common USB port, not a serial or parallel port. A software driver is supplied which will determine and configure a Com port to use (explained further in the programs 'help' menu).
- The program tracks all aspects of each race participant, which can be viewed or printed within their profile. A total of 96 racers (out of a database of 200) can participate per race event and if more than that are needed, there is a work around for that too. The programs main screen shows the current racers of each heat by name and car number. It also shows their 'current best time and global rating'. The program generates a complete realtime flowchart displaying the entire round by full name, race car number, races ran, whose on deck and lane selection by color. All Flowcharts can be printed.
- Hovering the mouse over the participants Last Name on the main screen will display all Times acquired for their event.
- The program contains three running modes: (1) Race Mode - actual Race. (2) Practice Mode - used for making 'Practice Runs' (requires the tower and hardware but not a schedule). (3) Tutorial Mode - used for 'program training' via the keyboard (requires a schedule but no hardware hookup).
- On Race Day, all participants can and should be flagged as 'non-active' and then made 'active' during the registration process, thus verifying that all contestants are accounted for. Only those made 'active' will be considered for the Race Schedule.
- The software has many settings which can be tweaked for desired Race Schedules.
- The software offers the ability to display the overall 'Best Track Time' thus far by any individual. It also offers the options to display Global Rankings, Best Personal Time and scaled MPH.
- A LED on the interface box tells you the status of the Starting Gate before 'resetting' the timers (the software also has a Safe-Guard built into it to prevent this from happening).
- The program has been tested successfully using Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7, 8 and 10. A major advantage is that the Interfacing uses the USB port of your computer in a Windows environment, not DOS.
- The program offers an option for 'real-time' testing of the track sensors thus verifying they are online and working properly.
- The program has the ability to Re-run a heat (undo) if the results were not desirable.
- An important feature is that the program has the ability to reload the last event if the program was interrupted due to a catastrophic power failure, computer crash, etc. No racing events data will be lost prior to the last heat!
- The race Tower contains four Lane Indicator LED's which tells the gate operator if a lane should be occupied or not (used as an aid). A second feature is the Lane Indicator light flashes for the winning Lane. The Tower also has two Status Lights (one Red, one Green) that keep you informed as to the real-time status of the 'hardware and software' at any given time.
- You have the ability to use two (2), three (3) or four (4) lanes. Even if you physically have four lanes, you can chose to use 2 or 3 lanes (might consider if you have a small group). Special effort has gone into the programming for racing on a 'Two Lane' track in the 'double-elimination' mode which always consists of an ODD number player.
- The program offers three exciting 'Racing Mode Formats' , Double-Elimination, Progressive and Round-Robin. With these formats (schedules), all participants are guaranteed to compete in several heats making it an exciting event for everybody (described in more detail in the softwares 'help' file).
- If lane color orientation is a concern, the program offers the ability to change the screens lane color position to match your track (red, blue, green, yellow or gray).
- To compensate for a car going off the track, the timers limits can be adjusted between 1 to 9 seconds (9 being the default) or you have the ability to 're-run' a heat if the results were not desired.
- In the event of duplicated car numbers between members, the program will automatically assign a letter after the duplicated car number letting the car racer retain their original number (ex. 77; 77A; 77B).
- In the event of a tie (depending on the racing method selected), the program will carry both participants forward. This can be over-turned by using the re-run (undo) option.
- Software contains a History File which saves the '10 All-Times Fastest Times' recorded.
- Any number of Roster files can be 'created and saved' in advance before Race Day.
- All hardware power requirements are supplied by the computers USB port (no external source needed).
- Email Support!
- The program itself goes into much more detailedinformation in the 'help' menu.
The annual Pinewood Derby race is a favorite activity for most Cub Scouts (moms and dads too). Each scout builds a race car out of a block of wood. At a den meeting, the cars are raced on a downhill track, often with 3 or 4 lanes.
The challenge for the parents running the race is to make the race fair, exciting, and over before bedtime. A simple elimination tournament may cause early losers to lose interest. Also, it may not be fair if one lane of the track is faster than another.
These scorekeeping spreadsheets, along with a laptop and a video projector, are a great way to organize the races.
Keeping Score
After every racer has raced in a group, we select the best cars and race them in a final group.
This scoring system was originally paper-based. The paper system worked OK with 20 scouts, but it took too long to score when the pack grew to 45 scouts. Automating the paper system with an Excel spreadsheet solved the problem. Having the spreasheet display visible to the starting gate helpers also made the races run quickly. A laptop computer connected to display projector works well.
Spreadsheet
The spreadsheet shown is setup for a 3-lane track, with the lanes are labeled A, B, and C. Other spreadsheet versions are available for 2-lane and 4-lane tracks.
Cars are numbered and divided into groups of between 6 and 15 cars. If you have more than 15 racers, divide them up into groups of less than 15. Each race group uses a page of the spreadsheet -- the 6-car group is shown above.
Car numbers are entered in the Heat 1 'Car' column. These numbers re-appear in different places in Heat 2 and Heat 3. As races are run, 1, 2, or 3 is entered in the 'Place' column for first, second, and third place. At the end of 3 heats, the 'Total Place' column will have a 1 for the 1st place car, 2 for the second place, and so on.
The white cells in the spreadsheet are the only cells that accept entries. Driver names are looked up and the score is computed automatically.
If you have a electronic timer, you can enter race times in seconds, rather than place.