General News
24 November, 2022
Winning weekend on the track
After a two-year hiatus, Maryborough’s Energy Breakthrough (EB) bounced back with a bang on the weekend, with local schools taking home a swag of awards and accolades. Local schools shone across the five-day event, with the Avoca Primary School...
After a two-year hiatus, Maryborough’s Energy Breakthrough (EB) bounced back with a bang on the weekend, with local schools taking home a swag of awards and accolades.
Local schools shone across the five-day event, with the Avoca Primary School making a name for itself in the Human Powered Vehicle (HPV) — A Class — Section 1 competition.
The school’s Avoca United team took out all three sub categories in the competition, Design & Construction, Display & Presentation and the trial, ultimately earning them bragging rights as the overall winner.
Avoca’s second team, Avoca Inspiration, had similar results in the Try-athlon Class A (Primary) event, named overall winner after securing individual wins in the Design & Construction categories and the trial.
Avoca Primary School’s EB coordinator Tom Elliott said the school was incredibly proud of the students’ efforts.
“The HPV team were overall winners and the Try-athlon team were as well,” he said.
“To see them put in that effort across all events in the design and construction, the display and presentation, the obstacle courses, sprints and the endurance races — everything they did, they did it to an absolute tee.
“EB also teaches kids that if you put in the effort good things do come and it doesn’t necessarily mean that you always win, but they were going to be winners, regardless of what happened on the weekend, in my eyes anyway because they are extraordinary.
Mr Elliott said the efforts of students were particularly highlighted given the harsh weather conditions that battered the event.
“I am extremely happy with how it all turned out, considering the adversity that was tied up in even hosting it,” he said.
“I believe the organisers did a great job to provide that opportunity for the kids because it would have been easy for them to call it off and justify that decision. But the fact that they went ahead with it, I think, takes a lot of courage and the kids get so much out of all it.”
In the Pushcarts section, St Augustine’s Primary School’s Super Saints took out the track events and was crowned the overall winner.
A temporary pause was called during the 24-hour secondary school race due to heavy rainfall however despite this, both Highview College and the Maryborough Education Centre performed strongly.
In the secondary HPV competition, Highview’s Jewel of Jumanji won the Class B1, following success in the Design & Construction and trial phases, while the school’s Farmer Wants A Trike team was the overall winner in class B2, following a strong win in the Display & Presentation.
Team H.C AstraZ also won the Class C section, after also securing wins in Design & Construction and the trial.
Highview College’s Luke Treacy said the effort all students put in was something to be proud of.
“We’re extremely proud, but the winning was the bonus. We’re really happy with the effort they put in throughout the whole program. They competed hard, fairly and respectfully,” he said.
“They were really good to deal with and we were rapt with the way we handled ourselves. They represented the school with distinction, that’s for sure.”
The school began preparations for EB back in term two and Mr Treacy said given the event hadn’t taken place for two years, described the student’s involvement as a “big effort”.
“We started our program in term two, we normally start with oral presentations and work on the kids’ ability to public speak with the presentation component in mind, they present on relevant themes such as climate change and renewable energy and relatable things to increase their knowledge of the point of the event, before moving on to design and construction interviews, where they research the trikes and recyclable materials that they are made out of,” he said.
“From term three onwards, we got the kids doing their cycling training, before training in trikes in term four.
“Given they hadn’t raced in two years, and a few of them hadn’t been familiar with the secondary track altogether, it was a big effort.
“Some of them were new to EB in full, so we tried to best educate them and give them the opportunity to train. We aimed to ride a smart race, because if we crash, we’re in the pits and damaging the trike, so we encouraged our riders to be smart with the way they rode and to be respectful as well. It’s a big message from us to race fairly, and they executed it beautifully.”
The Maryborough Education Centre also fared well, with team Voltaic winning the class B2 trial, finishing as overall runner-up.
Class C team Stampede secured a win in the Display & Presentation to also finish as overall runner-up.
The school’s Jordan Macilwain said in light of the weekend’s weather challenges, participating students showed plenty of resilience.
“Our secondary teams were really successful in this year’s event which was fantastic,” she said.
“The kids were fantastic over the weekend and in terms of resilience, we couldn’t have asked for anything more. When the race was called off for a couple of hours the students did what they were supposed to, they regrouped and stayed as a team.”
Ms Macilwain said although challenging, the couple of years away from the event have meant new students had the opportunity to get involved and sponsorship and support from businesses in the community remained strong.
“It’s nice that after a couple of years off, we had some new students involved which was good to see — EB can be an event that sees the same students involved each year so to see new students involved was great,” she said.
“Because we’re a P-12 school we have 60 to 70 students involved in EB so it is a huge community of kids at the school that are participating and it’s nice to have that.
“Being a teacher involved with it all, it’s nice to be able to build those connections with students and interact with them outside of the classroom.
“We’ve already had emails going around from team managers and coordinators looking at what we can do differently next year to make it a better program.”