Pinewood Derby Project

Arlette Burkhart
Jordan Wyman
02/26/2016
ENGR215 Section A Dr. Sliger

Introduction:
We were recruited by the Sliger Automotive Group to create the fastest pinewood derby
car possible. The group was additionally looking to determine the coefficient of kinetic friction
between the plastic wheel and their pinewood derby racetrack after running the car through two
pinewood derby races (a dry run and then a final race).
Objectives:
Our objective was to create the fastest pinewood derby car possible. Since we are
observing an object in motion, kinetic and kinematic equations are applied to describe the motion
of our derby car in both the dry run and race-day conditions. Through these equations, we are
able to determine the coefficient of kinetic friction of the wheels on the track and the moment of
inertia of our cars wheels.
Methods and procedure:
We obtained a standard pinewood derby car kit and executed our design in the wood shop
for both our initial car and our final car used on race day. For our first car design we chose to
have a wedge shape to the car and inserted three 2-gram weights in to the back of the car. We
then inserted another 3-gram weight in to the body of the car about five inches from the nose of
the car. We then raised one wheel axel so that there were only three wheels touching the track. A
mock pinewood derby was held at TCC, before the real pinewood derby against Highline, to
obtain trial result times for the initial design of our derby car. In our shop session after the dry
run we chose to keep the wedge shape of our car and one raised wheel, shaved off wood from the
nose and tail, and super-glued a small 1.2-gram weight to the bottom of the car. For cosmetic
decoration, gold paint and glitter were applied to the wood surfaces of the car before race-day.

All equations related to the motion of he car were determined on paper and were executed on
Excel.
Results and Discussion:
Measuring all dimensions in inches, we found the center of gravity of our car was
roughly 0.812 inches from the right of the drivers side and 5.09 inches from the nose in both
cars. These dimensions can be seen on both drawings included. The cars average time out of two
dry run trials was 3.28 seconds. After our improvements at the second shop our final race day run
time was 3.86 seconds. This time is based on the fact that the race day track was longer than the
track used for the dry run. Since the race day time was not significantly different than the dry
run, it is safe to say that our times stayed roughly the same.
We began running equations to determine factors such as normal force (calculated on
page 1 of calculation notes), velocity (page 6) , and tangential acceleration (page 1) by adapting
known kinetic and kinematics equations and running those equations with true values in Excel.
After running reasonable calculations through Excel we determined that the coefficient of kinetic
friction between the plastic wheel and the aluminum derby track was 0.2. This was an
experimental value as we attempted to match a coefficient with our race day time. The potential
energy in our dry run car was approximately 38.3 Joules while our potential energy in our race
day car was 40.0 Joules. These calculations can be found on pages 3, 4, and 7 of our calculations.
We then determined on our Excel spreadsheet that it would have taken our car 2.49 seconds to
get down a frictionless version of the track we tested the car on. Comparing this to our final race
day time (3.86 s), we found that we lost 55% of out energy to friction since that is the ratio
between the two times. This calculation can be found on page 7 of our calculations. There is

possibility that we lost some energy to drag but the due to the fact that the car did not travel at a
high speed, the drag force acting on the car is negligible.
The result of the coefficient of kinetic friction was part of our reasonable calculations.
These calculations, in reality, are wildly problematic. As you can tell from our Excel
spreadsheets, our total times are not exact to our real race times. After determining our center of
gravity, we determined its placement in space at the start of the track to be higher than the
placement of the start pin. We then found that including the extra bit of height it had on the track
to the y coordinates of the track did not impact the equation representing the track. As the car
traveled down the track, you can see both our velocity and our acceleration decreasing. However
it is clear to us that these values on the spreadsheet are both wildly unreasonable and obscene to
what was actually happening on the track. This is due to an inaccurate normal force. Our mass
was in pounds on our spreadsheet but our equation required us to use the mass of our car in
grams. We attempted to fix this problem but this resulted in our final time and the normal force
on our spreadsheet to be obscenely large.
Since our normal force was incorrectly determined, that began a ripple effect in the rest
of our calculations (i.e. our total time that was dependent on our acceleration, which affected our
t and velocity). Had we have found this conversion error sooner and made our units consistent
throughout the document from there then our calculations would have been correct and reflected
in the spreadsheet. Another inconsistent column was the calculation for rho. Since rho was
determined by using our equation of the track, we got a rho of about 345 inches, roughly 29 feet.
However going down the spreadsheet our rho became smaller. This was a major conceptual error
because it says that not only is the curve continuing down the track, it is an even smaller curve
than the beginning of the track. This does not make sense since a pinewood derby track is well

known to have a curve at the beginning and flat in the end. This rho error also contributed to our
inaccurate rho.
Much like the mistakes in Excel, the lack of organization was apparent in this project as
the determination of the potential energies before and after the modifications are hazy as they are
buried in the last page of calculation notes.
Conclusion:
Our car did perform well, 13th place out of 30 cars tested is still above average. As far as
design modifications in hindsight we could have made our car as flat as possible and placed the
weight evenly around the center of gravity. We also would have shaved the wheels on our car to
reduce the amount of contact with the track and thus reduce our energy lost to friction as well as
our moment of inertia. As far as calculations go, we should have been far more careful with the
early columns made in our spreadsheets since our early mistakes caused our results to be wildly
inaccurate. We have learned that the description of motion is not an easy task. When so many
factors and equations depend on each other one simple mistake can make an entire project fall
apart. While the car did in fact go down the track, but the execution of determining the
coefficient of friction and potential energies were mediocre and could have easily been fixed
with organization and focus.