LaMarche family : Awana Grand Prix

Monday, February 23, 2015

2015 Awana Grand Prix cars

I forgot to write about these after I finished uploading them to my blog from my phone.

Violet made the boat, Calvin made the...um...I'm not sure what it is. He calls it a train.

Initially Dave and Calvin planned to make a cardboard box out of his car and put an Amazon Prime label on it. Dave had cut out some circles under the car to take some weight out of it so he could put more weights on the back of the car. Calvin was reading up on grand prix cars and saw an image that showed how a wedge shape was more aerodynamic than a block shape, and he changed his mind and wanted a wedge shape. Well...this changed the cardboard box design, so Dave went ahead and cut off a corner, and this exposed a little hole in the shape of a smiley face from the cuts that Dave did underneath the car. They decided to paint eyes on it and make windows. Calvin ended up winning 1st place for design in the competition for Sparks.

Both their cars were fast but not the fastest. Close races!

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Awana Grand Prix - 2013 (pink train car)

Dave has been so busy with putting together the last minute details of the coffee nook at BBC that he's had little extra time to help Violet make her pinewood derby car. Violet really wanted a pink sparkly train. He took off work for a couple days last week (one for Valentine's Day, one just because), so he had some time to work on it. She helped him draw the shape of the train and shop for paint/supplies, and he cut it out...and it turned out pretty good. First he spray painted the whole thing black and then taped off the sections to keep black and spray painted pink (many layers!) over the black. He spray painted some random items black from the garage and attached them to look like smokestacks.

Her car ended up winning for speed in the Sparks group. She was pretty excited! Her friend Ivy won first place in design for her car shaped and painted like a #2 pencil.