Really It's for the Big Boys

So I was reading another blog I follow. The oldest son recently joined Cub Scouts and his daddy is the pack(?) leader. They are getting ready for their car derby.

For those of you who are not familiar with this, Cub Scouts and maybe Boy Scouts build a car out of wood and then race them. Really though, the cars are built and raced by the men, not the boys.

The story of her husband having good time building this car and then having the neighbor bring over the one he built for his son and her husband realizing he's not worthy reminded me of the time....

The cousins were in Cub Scouts (Boy Scouts?). I can't remember which group they were in but I know they were still in elementary school. Anyway, they needed to build wooden airplanes from a specific airplane kit  for a racing event.

Roy signed up to help. It's right up his alley and thought it would be a good thing for him to do with the boys. (Sy was not even thought of at the time.)  The boys helped a little but for the most part Roy built these two airplanes. He was disappointed that they were heavy and didn't seem to fly well. He read through the information which said not to modify the planes. Okay, he won't but he will add another rubber band to the propeller action so it has more spin, thereby going further.

Event day. Roy and I go as we are excited to see these things in action.

How it worked:
You check in your airplane and it's inspected to make sure it fits the rules.
One of the leader's announced that this wasn't a competition and there were no winners or losers. It was just an event for the scouts to have fun.
Once your airplane qualifies the MEN (leaders) set up brackets to have planes race against each other down two strings set up across the room. If you lose, you are done. The faster plane moves to the next bracket.
And THE MEN race the planes - not the boys.

Roy is checking out the entries. They are sanded down to almost nothing and are painted with model car paint to help their aerodynamics. Seriously.

So Roy gets called up because the boys planes could not have two rubber bands on the propeller because that was against the rules. If he didn't remove them, they would not be able to race. Seriously.

Roy was hot. And so was I. Roy was hot because the paperwork that came home with the planes said only minimal alterations and what was presented by other participants was more than minimal alterations. I was upset that while they said this was not a competition, they did not let the boys sign up to take turns to race their planes against each other for fun. These boys were more than old enough to put their name on a sign up sheet and wait their turn.

What was gained from that activity? What did the boys learn? The Boy Scouts say it fosters the father-son relationship and teaches good sportsmanship. Really? I believe it taught the boys to sit back and play their Game Boys while their fathers played with toys.