Start up your saw and get out your craft paint. It's time for the pinewood derby Grand Prix race. Boy Scouts and Awana clubbers love to make their own cars and enter them in the race. Design a sleek car meant for speed or pick an unusual design, and maybe you'll win a prize for craftsmanship. It's always difficult for the judges to pick when there are so many good ideas for great car designs.
Heroes
Make a car based on a hero, either a real hero or a character from a movie, TV show or comic book. Make cars that look like army vehicles, police cars or fire-fighting vehicles; a fire chief drives a car that has a sleeker look than a boxy fire truck, but either would work as a car theme. Honor our country with a car that has a patriotic theme. Give a car a super hero for a driver or put a logo on the front, such as the big Superman "S." Or make the car a super hero drives, such as the Batmobile. Characters from popular movies are good, and if the movie has cars in it, that's even better. Any of the characters from the Pixar movie "Cars" would make good choices, but you can also use video game characters such as Sonic and Mario or Lego characters. If you are making your car for the Awana Grand Prix, Awana characters make good choices. You can also design a car shaped like an animal.
Types of Vehicles
Make race cars of all shapes and colors, both designs you make up yourself and those styled after your favorite professional driver's car, such as Indy cars and NASCAR styles, are popular ideas. You can also make regular road cars (both modern and old-fashioned), skateboards, boats and submarines. New styles of "smart" or "green" cars would be a creative idea, but since pinewood derby cars don't actually use gas, Humvees are also acceptable.
Everyday Objects
Cars shaped like objects that are long and slender make good choices. Make a car shaped like a pen, pencil, crayon, musical instrument, banana, phone, carrot, corn on the cob, a candy bar, a tootsie roll or a pack of gum. If you can find a good title that goes along with your theme, so much the better.
Bible Theme
For the Awana Grand Prix, some clubs have a special prize for a car with a Bible theme. Look for a verse that has a good visual: The Lord is my fortress, the fruit of the Spirit, Bread of Life or fishers of men. Make the car shaped like the object in the verse and then paint or write the verse on the body of the car. Or look for a verse about a race and put it on a car shaped like a race car.
Tips from a Judge
Judges are looking for creativity and quality craftsmanship. You can't sand your car too much; the smoother the surface, the better it will look. Start with a course grain of sandpaper and work down to a fine grain. Take your time painting it, and use as many coats as necessary to cover the surface well. Carefully add any lettering or numbers. Make it extra shiny with a coat of polyurethane. Do your best job, but don't forget to have fun doing it.
Tags: shaped like, Grand Prix, good choices, make good, make good choices