Pinewood Derby Cars and Chess Sets

The boys and I just finished their pinewood derby cars for this month's upcoming races.

This year, Eddie got really fancy, drawing up a surf board design inspired by "The Lightning Thief" by Rick Riordan (an excellent series of youth fantasy novels based upon Greek mythology). The silver bolt of lightning represents Zeus, the golden trident is for Poseidon, and the skull is for Hades and his underworld. Eddie's car involved some rather intricate scroll-saw cutting, which I had to supervise, of course.


Luke chose an aerodynamic design with a more classic race car look. This car has the weights standing on the hood like an engine sticking out. Luke's model is very sleek, and it should be a very fast car. We shall soon find out!


Also during the break, Luke and I painted the rims of his Irish chess pieces so that we could tell them apart during a game. Luke chose a dark indigo for the musketeers, and a bright yellow for the knights. We then put matching felt on the bottoms of all the pieces to protect the resin board that came with his set.

Luke was pretty pleased with the outcome, and he trounced me in his first practice game.