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The Pinewood Derby Project
When my boys were in the Cub Scouts they participated in the Pinewood Derby every year.  The first year I was involved we used the existing track our pack had, which had a manual gate and required a judge at the finish line.  I was horrified at the lack of sportsman like behavior on the part of the parents, who accused the judges of everything from bias to corruption.  The boys really enjoyed the evening, but the parents were at each other's throats. I got together with some of the fathers and we decided to build a track with electronic timers and an automated gate to remove the subjective part of the race administration.  The second year, with the new track,  was a great improvement, no fights or hard feelings.  My part, since I'm an Electronic Engineer,  was to design and develop the electronics for the track.  My design consists of a control board, and one display board for each lane on the track.  It is my experience that the boys care about who won the race, and the parents care about multiple elimination runs, overall best times and the like.  Therefore my system displays both time and first, second, and third place for each lane.  The installation manual is available for download.  E-HM will provide the PC boards, parts list and programmed uControllers to any CSA Cub Scout Pack  for Free.  Assembled and tested boards are available, for a reasonable price.  Anyone interested in including my track electronics into their Pinewood Derby track should E-HM.
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