If you suffer from nostalgia, you might remember carving a block of wood into a car, adding some wheels, and racing it against other contestants in a pinewood derby. Today’s derby is decidedly high tech though, and we were impressed with this car scale that also figures out the car’s center of gravity.

Based on an Arduino, of course, along with a pair of HX711 load cells. Why a pair? That’s how the device measures the center of gravity is by weighing the front and rear of the car separately.

We really liked the wooden case and found the use of wood satisfying if not ironic. Our only input is that since you need the wheelbase of the car to do the CG calculations, we’d have glued a ruler down. On the other hand, probably any self-respecting pinewood derby creator knows their wheelbase by heart.

Why does CG matter? If you are too far forward, you lose some acceleration. If you are too far back, the front wheels might pop up. With this device, you can know exactly where your center is and make adjustments accordingly.

If you’d rather build something for the actual race, why not a photo finish system? Or, perhaps you need a jet-powered (illegal) entry.

Everyone remembers popping their first wheelie on a bike. It’s an exhilarating moment when you figure out just the right mechanics to get balanced over the rear axle for a few glorious seconds of being the coolest kid on the block. Then gravity takes over, and you either learn how to dismount the bike over the rear wheel, or more likely end up looking at the sky wondering how you got on the ground.

Had only this wheelie cheating device been available way back when, many of us could have avoided that ignominious fate. [Tom Stanton]’s quest for the perfect wheelie led him to the design, which is actually pretty simple. The basic idea is to apply the brakes automatically when the bike reaches the critical angle beyond which one dares not go. The brakes slow the bike, the front wheel comes down, and the brakes release to allow you to continue pumping along with the wheelie. The angle is read by an accelerometer hooked to an Arduino, and the rear brake lever is pulled by a hobby servo. We honestly thought the servo would have nowhere near the torque needed, but in fact it did a fine job. As with most of [Tom]’s build his design process had a lot of fits and starts, but that’s all part of the learning. Was it worth it? We’ll let [Tom] discuss that in the video, but suffice it to say that he never hit the pavement in his field testing, although he appeared to be wheelie-proficient going into the project.

Still, it was an interesting build, and begs the question of how the system could be improved. Might there be some clues in this self-balancing motorized unicycle?