HPV 2023

This year, the Mount Eliza Racing Team (MERT) students competed in the Casey 12-hour race and the Maryborough 24-hour races, riding Human Powered Vehicles that they had built and maintained over the year. The program has been running for a few decades at MESC and is a beautiful example of our wonderful, vibrant community of teachers, students and families working together. 

The Energy Breakthrough is a joint initiative of the Country Education Partnership (CEP) and the Central Goldfields Shire Council (CGSC). Since 1991, the Energy Breakthrough has provided 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’. The program is unique in that all teams must compete across three areas of assessment: Design and Construction, Display and Presentation and Trials.

The Energy Breakthrough isn’t just a once-a-year event. School groups work throughout the year to design, build and test machines within detailed specifications. The program encourages participants to examine and use the latest technology while considering its impact on the environment and the way people live locally and globally.  It requires a team effort and an across-the-curriculum approach. These groups then bring their vehicles and machines to Maryborough in Victoria for a huge celebration in which they can demonstrate and trial them in action.

Our students travelled by train to Maryborough which was proved to be an adventurous, it was onto the teams presenting their vehicles for safety scrutineering on the Friday ahead of practice laps for qualifying. Saturday 11 am saw students take their grid position at 11 am, for a wet race start at 12 pm.  By 12.20 both trikes had returned to pits following a couple of times following a few roll overs ..... what came next was 24 hour, non-stop racing, coming in to pits for a million flat tyres, many rollovers and rider change overs. With only 6 riders instead of the usual 8 that’s an average of 4 hours riding each…. truly an inspirational effort from our middle school girls team, Twilight Rangers and our mixed seniors team Midnight Rangers.

Some impressive stats from a blistering and at times wet 24 hours:

4 hour average rider time 

3 hours longest ride time for one rider (with a short 30 minute break) and 2.5 hours longest ride time non-stop by one rider 

1.58 km course length with teams achieving a 3minutes 40  average lap speed 

Some competitive rivalry amongst the seniors saw one of our newest rider hitting a 2minutes 08 fastest lap closely followed by 3 others in 2 minutes 22.  Simply awesome to watch.

Just how far did the teams ride I hear you say?

Our Seniors Midnight Rangers clocked up an impressive 394 laps, that’s 622.5km…. that further than from school to Mildura in just 24 hours….

The Middle School all girls Twighlight Rangers backed that up with an equally impressive 337 laps, that’s 532.5km… that would almost have you visiting the dog on the tucker box 5 miles from Gundagai.

We give endless thanks to the new committee of parents who have taken on the role of management of the program this year, and all the adults (parents and teachers) who came on camp to support these amazing young people. 

We are very grateful for our sponsors who helped make the events happen, please support those that support us.

• Palamara Village Fruits
• Bakers Delight Mt Eliza
• Village Gourmet Meats
• The Tyre Factory Frankston (when next you need new tyres head to the Tyre Factory in Frankston for a 10% discount for the MESC community)

2024 looks to be bigger and better building on the success of this year.  We hope to enter into a new the world of peddle assist Electric Trikes and go faster and further in 2024 as well as adding some new junior teams to the MERT family.  All are welcome!  It’s not just about riding and racing, there are great opportunity to learn about the mechanics and engineering aspects, express you artistic flair as we decorate the trikes, or try put some cinematic skills to work and document the shenanigans.  Also welcome are some handy parents who want to get involved and have a whole heap of fun with some great people.

If HPV sounds like something that might fit your family and students, reach out to our parents association President Kristian by email:  kristiangleeson@bigpond.com

This year, the MERT ran as a smaller program, as we rebuilt the program in a new parent-run model with school support. thank you to everyone who showed interest in the program at the beginning of the year. We haven't forgotten about you and we are very keen to expand again, so that we have a new structure in place. We will be advertising recruitment for riders and families in 2024, so stay tuned for announcements