Pinewood Derby races student-built cars

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers along with Utah State University Robotics hosted the Pinewood Derby at Utah State on Feb. 20. Students enjoyed Aggie ice cream and Red Bull before the show. This event was a part of USU’s annual Engineering Week.  

Several teams competed in two categories. The Boy Scouts of America category followed BSA guidelines. The gravity only category was freestyle, prohibiting the use of motors.  

AMSE awarded car #25 “The Twig” the BSA championship belt and car #7 “Big Red” the gravity only title.  

The Boy Scout of America’s standards for pinewood derby outline that the car must weigh no more than five ounces, and was made of a block of wood. 

Cars were placed at the top of a wooden track and sent down, passing a sensor at the top and a sensor at the bottom for precise timing and tracking. As the cars broke the laser stream, data was sent to a coding software.  

ASME members Alex Himelberger and Zack Fraser built the sensors. 

“The track we got this year didn’t have a timer on it,” Fraser said. “Online versions of the timer system were three hundred dollars, so we were like, ‘Let’s just build our own.’ We started with Arduino, it’s the microcontroller that actually reads the data. And the sensors we found online, pretty much just like a laser that’s invisible that goes across and when that’s broken it sends a signal.” 

Himelberger and Fraser served as the judges for the pinewood derby.  

Karmen Teuscher, the president of ASME, said the championship belt is a new tradition.  

“It’ll be a prize that returns every year,” Teuscher said. “Whoever wins will bring it back and it’ll be transferred to the new winners.”  

Alan Merrit, Sam Adams, and Tony Daniels are juniors who won the BSA title and were given the aesthetics award for the visual design of their red pick-up truck. 

 “Aluminum is easy to work with and it’s what we have experience with,” Adams said. 

Merrit, Adams, and Daniels all work in a metal factory.  

“We machined it out of solid aluminum,” Merritt said.  

The truck, coming in at four pounds, beat every other car due to the placement of the weight. The blocks were stacked inside the trunk.  

“There’s lead casting underneath the caps, so it weighs a lot.” Daniels said.  

Matthew Ashton, a first-year student studying mechanical engineering, was involved in the planning for the event.  

“This is one of the competitions we have to highlight students and get students involved,” Ashton said. “It’s a coalition of a few clubs that have put it together. There’s ASME, there’s the USU car racing club, and also the robotics club. I thought ASME gave me a great opportunity to get involved, and they offer a lot of good opportunities and options in engineering.”