The Electrathon Event at Beech Ridge Speedway on Sunday, May 18th

The Electrathon event at Beech Ridge Speedway on May 18th in Scarborough, Maine went very well. There were 14 vehicles in attendance---7 Human Powered Vehicles, 6 Electrathon Vehicles and 1 Neighborhood Electric Vehicle (a solar electric pick-up truck manufactured by Art Haines of SunnEV.com from Norridgewalk, Maine).

What is Electrathon? It is a Learning Competition for 9th to 12th Grade Students Teams of students construct single-person, battery-operated vehicles for regional and national competitions.  There are also categories for other age groups to compete. For more information, see the Maine Energy Education Program’s Electrathon page.

 

We held two competitions: 

The morning Electrathon race saw Michael Lewis, an independent from Portland, win the Open Class with 71 laps in one hour. He is shown in this photo with MPBN’s Tom Porter.

 

Falmouth High School won as top Veteran High School with 63 laps

Neshoba Valley Tech (Westford, MA) was top Rookie High School with 51 laps

This is another photo of the Neshoba Team and their vehicle

In the afternoon we held our first “Race to the Grocery Store”, bringing all of these eclectic vehicles together in a joint competition. We timed participants for acceleration,
maneuverability (ability to slalom around a series of buckets) and a
“Race to the Grocery Store”, with drivers running to their vehicles,
jumping in, lapping the track, parking and racing to the “store”
(card table) to pick up their ”groceries” (a cup of grapes), then
bringing the groceries to their car. One lucky shopper, Michael Lewis, found a special marker below his grapes, redeemable for a copy of the *sunrise guide*, a coupon book for healthy and
sustainable living in southern Maine!
 

This is One of the Human-Powered Vehicles at the Event

KUDOS

EVMaine.org thanks Peter Zack, a board member of the Maine Energy Education Program for both this report, and for his tireless dedication to this wonderful and constructive activity for our youth.

And our thanks also to Beth Otto, an Americorps Volunteer who took all of the above photos.

This Event was Sponsored by the Maine Energy Education Program

http://www.meepnews.org/
 

For More about Maine Electrathon Events go to these other EVMaine.org pages

Click Here and Click Here

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