Students hit full Evolocity

Students from across the Top of the South were finally able to pit their electric creations against other teams at the Nelson Marlborough Evolocity last week.

The programme, which has been running for a decade, challenges students to create an electric vehicle from scratch.

Evolocity national coordinator Shannon Wildman says that could be a kart or a bike, with two categories for motor size – 350watt or two kilowatts - usually for teams who have competed before.

With 14 teams registered to attend the event in Nelson on Thursday, including seven from Marlborough the event is growing in popularity across the region.

“We’ve made ours mostly from recycled material from JBL Environmental at the dump,” says team member Matilda Phelps of their kart-style vehicle.

Matilda joined the team because she has an interest in physics.

“I thought this might be fun to do the electrical stuff as well, so I I got to do a bit of that, and then the engineering is really cool too.”

Menzshed Blenheim were instrumental in assisting the team, helping with the construction of the vehicle, Matilda says. They also donated the front of a bike to base the vehicle around.

The Year 11 team were plagued with problems from the get-go having trouble with the motor during the build process.

The furthest they managed to get during practice runs was 10 metres, but the girls refused to give up when the problems continued after their arrival in Nelson.

Dealing with a flat tyre and broken fuse meant they missed the first competitive race, but showed great determination in persevering to finally see their vehicle take-off down the race track with Abi Adams at the wheel.

The success was short-lived though, being the only successful run the team managed to muster, ending with a fun push down the track.

However, on the one run they got, Abi handled the kart like a dream.

Two judges also made the journey from Blenheim, Paula and Marshall from Melo-Yelo eBikes.

“We came to the event last year and there were only six or seven teams, it was a hoot of an event,” Gary says.

Gary says there were three standout teams this year but one, from Nelson Intermediate, claimed top prize by one little point.

For information or to register for next year’s event visit evolocity.co.nz