pine wood derby project
 

Hello all,

I wanted to share my pine wood derby car design project. I am entering a design contest that is part of a SolidWorks 2013 launch event. The design must be a legitimate pine wood derby car. The entry deadline is near the end of September, so I will hopefully be updating the post as the design progresses.

I am sharing this with you all because my design is based off the Z! I love my 370's styling. I am also fond of the 240's looks as well, so I be using both cars as an influence to my design. I didn't want to just copy the existing Z's so I decided to make a 390z concept!?

Ill post some pictures throughout the design process to get some feedback. The final contest submission must be a "photo" realistic rendering. I wanted to get your opinion at the end of which rendering you like the most, and which one I should submit. The more people who like a particular photo only means the more judges that will like it.



http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8451/7...71c15c5c62.jpg
START BLOCK

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8444/7...1e6d29b2b7.jpg
HOOD CARVE

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8031/7...a69451114f.jpg
WINDSHIELD CARVE

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8437/7...3313b4256b.jpg
Z WAGON?

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8173/7...286199b324.jpg
FENDER CUT

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8456/7...9718ea009b.jpg
DOOR CUT

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8300/7...a84609d17d.jpg
REAR CARVE

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8302/7...5097f36042.jpg
FRONT VIEW

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8438/7...037e1bdf6f.jpg
TOP VIEW

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8030/7...ba343d5b4f.jpg
SKETCHES

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8316/7...4032408d42.jpg
REAR ISO

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8305/7...ab18db3fbe.jpg
TAILS

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8446/7...c51780fa02.jpg
HEADS

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8461/7...6cb364e944.jpg
PAINT

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8029/7...01c93d0fb7.jpg
SLIGHT REDESIGN AND SAMPLE RENDER

^^^ Very cool.

Nice! I like the REAR ISO.

I made like four of these when I was in cub Scouts. Very fun.

Nicely done. i love me some solid works

Very nice! :tup:

Which shade of gray will you paint it? :icon17:

I am rooting for ummie4 and son.

no need to carve out the wheel wells. If you inset the wheels, the car wont meet the rules (by cubs scout tech standards).

oh the other thing is your axle locations are illegal.... You cant modify those either. (yeah I was a PWD race director, lol)

Looks pretty good! Never been to one of those race before tho.

Thanks for the heads up. I double checked the rules. I must have .300" of ground clearance, and I do. Also check the axle thing you mentioned. there is no limit between them and no limit on how close or far they need to be from the front or rear bumper. The car must not be longer than 10". or wider than 3".

Just added 2 news pics of the heads and tails. I must say I am very surprised everyone likes it so far.

Pinewood Derby® Car Adjustment Tool is the template we used. Youre lucky they arent sticking to the wheel base rules. How are you gonna cut it wil a cnc? Assuming youre running open comp division given that kids are supposed to make thier cars, and I dont know any cubscouts that can run a mill and a paint booth, hahaha.

when I was looking around, I found this...
Official Pinewood Derby Wheels and Axles - Accessories - Pinewood Derby - Crafts - BSA

You can now get different color wheels! When did they start offering these?!

Being a former cub scout and an Eagle scout, I APPROVE! This is awesome

Ditto here!!

Looks great. Sheeshh I look back on my old PWD cars, and this would have been awesomeeee. If I only had CAD skills at the ripe age of 10.

Eagle Scout Sound off!! Troop 126 :hello::rock:

Added some paint. I donno I kinda liked the wood grain, maybe I will blend it. The car looks bad on the regulation wheels. I wish I could lower it. I might have to do some trickery for the final picture render for submission.

:iagree:

This is epic. I was PWD champion of my squad in 91'.

Why don't you lower the roofline? And I remember, when I was like 10 I put balsa wood over the wheels to make it look better, I made it look like a... Ferrari... The wheels were MASSIVE for the size of the car, but it's all we had

And are you putting weight in it? I could've sworn you have to 3.5oz

Fishing weights work great.. I remember the "wedge" was really popular.. About 25 years ago LOL Great to see the PWD car evolve.. Do you have to follow any rules or is this just strictly design based?

Yes there are rules. max dimensions, min/max ground clearance, min/max wheel base width. This is a design contest. Nicest looking pine wood car "model" and nice looking "photo render" There are no plans to actually build this, although I think I will cut it out for fun. We have a CNC micro mill at our work that the car is perfect size for.

Thanks for the advice I lowered the roof line. Ran some cleaner looking renders... I think these look better than the grass field one above. What do you guys think? plainer is better?

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8172/7...6f4406f8_z.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8041/7...11354c29_z.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8035/7...15cf9ced_z.jpg

Incredible project! Stick with the blue, looks great!

IMO your surfaces are all over the place. Turn on zebra stripes and double check your surface boundaries particularly where the hood and the windshield meet and on the rear fenders before the wheel. If I were judging the rendering I would dock you points on those aspects.

Do you do 3d models for a living or just as a hobby? Ask yourself if you'd put it into production yourself as an actual product. Lowering the roofline has improved your proportions considerably but if you really want to win a competition against professional modelers I would suggest starting a second draft with a sketch in mind. As it stands it looks like you dove straight into solidworks without a sketch or any kind of orthographic or reference (thus the unrefined surfaces and off proportions).

Dude, that is awesome! It looks like a Z From the movie Cars! Nice job!

Thanks for the advise. I do use solidworks for a living, however I use it for machine design. I don't get into surfacing much at all, although I have an interest in it. I thought this project would be a fun excuse to try it out and test my skills! The areas you talked about can be smoothed out and blended better. I was going for the look that is was carved out of wood. I didn't want this to look like a real car as the competition is to design a PWD car. As Gixxer pointed out it looks like a car generic type Z car from the movie Cars. This is exactly what I was going for. I have started another draft folloing your advise. I'll post it when I get it to a worthy point.

What kind of exhaust are you putting on it :eekdance:

But seriously, I used to love doing these as a kid. Though I wasn't quite to the level that you are doing.

Im gonna have to dust off the belt sander and band saw and make one, I still have leftover kits, lol. My last car as a leader was the Lowenbrau #14 Porsche 962