The annual Pinewood Derby is my opportunity to teach my kids about tradeoffs and human…

The annual Pinewood Derby is my opportunity to teach my kids about tradeoffs and human psychology.

Each kid gets one car.

There are three categories:
- speed
- design
- creativity

Every year, I ask the same question:
“What ONE category do you want to win?”

In the early years, they asked the default human question:
“Why not try for all three?”

My answer:
“Because that’s the hardest way to guarantee you lose at everything.”

Why?

Because choices have tradeoffs.
- The fastest cars usually aren’t the prettiest.
- The prettiest cars usually aren’t optimized for speed.
- And creativity is relative to whatever everyone else brings.

Plus, speed is objective.
Design and creativity are subjective.

That matters.

The blueprints for “the fastest Pinewood Derby car” are one Google search away for every kid (and their parents). So the speed category becomes an arms race over fractions of a second.

And the event itself reinforces it.
Hour after hour: race, race, race.

So most kids drift toward optimizing for speed, even if that wasn’t the original plan.

- Last minute wheel adjustments
- Drill holes to remove weight
- Extra weights shoved in strange places
- Paint scratched
- Designs compromised

The math usually looks something like this:
- 20% go all-in on speed
- 70% try to balance speed + design
- few go all-in on creativity or aesthetics

Which means roughly 90% of kids are competing for the 33% of the trophy pool.

More importantly:
they’re competing against the one category measured objectively... with clear, scientific standards that dictate performance.

I prefer different odds. Unsurprisingly, so do my kids.

Winning, by definition, is an exercise in being the outlier.

Most won't win, which means there is limited room at the top. So winners are usually the few willing to prioritize differently, absorb the tradeoffs, and play a different game.

Tonight, we test the merits of dad's philosophy... and defend last year's first place title. :)

Meet this year's submissions:
"Show Time" and "The #1 Pencil"