See the Full Derby Walkthrough

This is a five-minute tour of the Pinewood Derby race engine, from creating a race to the final standings. One continuous demo, sixteen cartoon racers, sixty-one matchups, and three phone views — everything a Cubmaster, committee member, or anyone helping run the pack's derby will see on race day.

If you've already watched the short pitch on the main page, this goes deeper. If you haven't, you can start here anyway — the walkthrough stands on its own. By the end you'll know what setup looks like, how races play out, how awards get assigned, and what the room sees while it all happens.

Grab a coffee, hit play, and come back to the notes below when you're done.

What to Watch For

Five minutes is a lot of screens on the first viewing. If you only take three things away from the walkthrough, take these.

The system adds extra races on its own

About two minutes in, you'll see the race reach a point where it could stop. The progress bar is full enough to rank everyone with confidence. But the system keeps going — it noticed that some racers had fewer matchups than others, and it added eight more races to balance the field out. Nobody sat out. Nobody raced more than they should have. Every scout in the demo raced at least seven times, and nobody raced more than nine.

This is the core difference from a traditional bracket. Brackets give you equal racing at the cost of fairness, or a fair ranking at the cost of equal racing. The balancing engine gives you both. If you're evaluating this system against whatever you used last year, this is the moment that matters most.

Three phones, three different views

The phone on screen changes a few times during the racing section. First you see the Race Supervisor phone — green triangle, red circle, tap the winner. Then it shifts to the Master of Ceremonies phone — car names, avatars, fun facts, a "first time racing!" callout. Then it shifts again to the Guest phone, the view every parent in the room has, with live run history and standings by rank.

Three roles, three phones, one race running underneath all of them. That's the whole architecture. No separate apps to install, no special hardware — each role just opens a different link on their own phone.

A Scout is running the race — not an adult

Watch who's tapping the Race Supervisor phone. The algorithm picks matchups. The person in that seat just confirms the winner and the next pair appears. It doesn't need to be an adult, and in our Troop it usually isn't. The whole point is to let older scouts run the event while the grown-ups cheer from the audience. Notice how little intervention the dashboard needs once racing starts — that's the system handing the event back to the youth.

Three Roles, Three Screens

Here's a quick reference for who does what on race day. Each role is a separate phone view, opened from a separate link:

• Race Supervisor (RS) — the person running the races. Usually a Boy Scout from the Troop, not an adult. They see the current matchup on their phone, confirm the winner with one tap, and the system picks the next pair. See Racing for the full role.
• Master of Ceremonies (MC) — the announcer. Usually the Cubmaster or a Den Leader. Their phone shows car names, avatars, fun facts, win streaks, and the interface for assigning design and special awards. This is the script they work from during the ceremony. See Judging and Awarding.
• Guest — everyone else in the room. Parents, siblings, leaders, friends. They see live run history, standings, and the award ceremony broadcast as it happens. No login, no app, no account — just open a link or scan a QR code. See For Spectators for a full tour of this view.

Behind all three phones sits the Dashboard — the planning and admin interface, usually on a laptop at the judges' table. It's always visible in the walkthrough as the background layer, so you can see how phone actions update the big picture in real time.

Where to Go from Here

The walkthrough gives you the whole picture in one sitting. Your next step depends on why you came here.

Ready to run a derby with this system. Go straight to Get Started — it's a short checklist of what you'll need and how to get access to the system for your pack.

Want to understand the logic behind each stage first. Work through the How It Works hub. It walks through the six stages — Planning, Preparing, Racing, Judging, Awarding, Completed — in roughly the same order as the video, with far more detail on the decisions and the edge cases at each stage.

Evaluating the system for your pack. Two side pages are worth a read before you decide. For Adults explains why adult participation matters and how it shapes the way awards are handed out. For Spectators shows exactly what parents and siblings see on their own phones during the event — useful for answering the "what will my family experience?" question before you commit.

Common Questions

Do I need to install anything?

No. Everything runs in a web browser. There's nothing to install on your phone, nothing for families to install on theirs, and nothing to install on the laptop running the Dashboard. You open a link, you're in. A QR code pinned to the venue wall is enough to get every spectator on the guest view.

What phones does it work on?

Any reasonably recent iPhone or Android phone with a modern browser — Safari, Chrome, Firefox. The screens are designed phone-first, so smaller phones work fine. Tablets and laptops work too, for anyone who prefers a larger screen.

Does it need Wi-Fi at the venue?

Yes — every phone needs an internet connection, because the system updates all screens in real time. Most church halls and school cafeterias are fine on cellular signal. If you're unsure about coverage at your venue, a portable hotspot is a cheap backup and will happily carry a full pack's worth of phones for an afternoon.

What if my pack has a four-lane track with electronic timers?

Right now this tool is built for two-lane tracks — the kind where the hard part is figuring out who races whom without a computer timing every run. If you already have a four-lane track with electronic timing, you're in good shape with your current setup and don't need this. This is specifically for the packs running two lanes and a clipboard. The car specs on the Rules page are the same either way.

Can I try it before committing?

Yes. The walkthrough you just watched is a real race with real data — we can give you access to a test race so you can click through the same screens yourself before you bring it to your pack. See Get Started for how to request access.