Pinewood Derby Roadster

I created this model in Blender for a family Christmas activity and it was a big hit! Everyone got their own car and we built a regulation pinewood derby track to run them on. Unfortunately, the cars themselves are not regulation, since they are not made of pine.

The weight of the car can be changed by adding or removing pennies from slots inside of the vehicle. I used a kitchen scale to make sure each kit had the exact same overall weight. You can also change the weight distribution to try to gain a competitive advantage, by shifting the pennies either forward or backward in the car. It was great to see the kids trying to figure out where to put their pennies for best performance.

The two halves of the car simply snap together with an H-clip that I designed.  You can open the car back up by prying apart the front air scoop with your fingers. The wheels attach with qty 4 #8-32 screws (that's what I had on hand while making them). We also made number decals to differentiate the cars, but that's not necessary if you make them different colors.

I printed the car halves with a little bit of support for the driver's arms, and helper discs (I call them ears) on each end to help keep the parts as flat as possible.

The majority of the model is my design, but the driver is remixed from: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:305925