Deni North’s winning team (from left) Charlie Eastman, James Massingham, Rupert Maslen, Ned Campbell, team captain Connor Sampson, team co-manager Ellie Gavel, team manager Christie Gavel, Maddison Hunter, Lisa Huckstadt, Pippa Holden, Lotus Gallpen-Brown and (front) Stevie Williams.
Deniliquin North Public School has just finished up the Energy Breakthrough Challenge in Maryborough, with one of their push cart teams taking away the overall winner honours.
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It is the second year in a row Deni North has taken out an overall win, allowing the only NSW team in the competition to stamp a dominance on the event.
Deni North entered with two teams - the HPV (high-performance vehicle) team and challenge winners team Boltz.
Established in 1991, the Energy Breakthrough provides opportunities for students, teachers, parents and local industry to work together to design and construct a vehicle, a machine or innovation in technology that will represent an ‘energy breakthrough’.
Deni North teacher Christie Gavel has been involved with the schools push cart team for five years.
This year she had the added expertise of daughter Ellie onboard as co-manager to assist, who had competed in events previous with North School.
The Energy Breakthrough pits teams of 10 students against one another, giving kids the opportunity to work as part of a team toward a common goal.
Having only 10 students per team means that from a class of upwards of 25, you’re likely to have some miss out.
But that’s not the case for Deni North.
Other students showed maturity and a high level of teamwork throughout the process by aiding and assisting throughout all aspects of preparing for the event.
The racing is only a small part of the whole process of creating and constructing a push cart for the event.
The Energy Breakthrough event places a strong emphasis on sustainability, and schools begin their preparations for the event upwards of 12 months before it takes place.
“There is a heavy emphasis on sustainability, like the use of as much recycled product as possible in the construction of the push cart,” Mrs Gavel said.
There is a component of competition that gets the children to construct and explain their push carts to the judges in relation to the sustainable practices they used.
This took place last Wednesday, before race day.
“The children’s understanding of recycling and sustainability has been aided by the new bin system I think,” Mrs Gavel said.
As well as the rigours of passing design and construction tests, there was also a scrutineering test, where the vehicle had to be deemed safe and meet design requirements.
Once the team had passed all the tests, they prepared for their three events.
On a sweltering day in Maryborough on Thursday, team Boltz were composed and ready to work as a team to get the win, handling the conditions well.
Across an endurance, sprint and obstacle event, the Deni North Boltz push cart team were able to score a first, second and fourth, giving them the best overall score for the day.
None of which happens without the commitment from the students.
Beginning early last year, the students have sought out donations and sponsorship for the event and have been met with resounding support from the community.
“We just have an incredible community at North, we’re very lucky,” Mrs Gavel said.
“But the kids did so well to get the sponsors and do the work.”
Deni North students working together at the Energy Breakthrough event.
Deni North's Boltz team after finding out the results of the day.
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