Entries have soared for the 23rd RACV Energy Breakthrough. With nearly 360 entries received at the time of writing, the number of students and teachers wanting to participate is higher than ever.
Full entry lists for all categories and classes can now be viewed online here >
When entries opened on March 6, Wonthaggi Secondary College’s ‘Wizards’ were the first team to complete their entry in an amazing 29 seconds!
Alistair Lowe, the man responsible for submitting that Wonthaggi entry at 9:00.29am, told us via our RACV Energy Breakthrough Facebook page that he was pretty excited to be the first one through:
“(That is) awesome! We wanted to make sure we got in so I was on the refresh button from 5mins to 9am.”
There is so much interest in this year’s event that we have had nearly 50 teams already on the Waiting List. One school very close to the top of that Waiting List is Bendigo Senior Secondary College, who memorably claimed line honours in the 2012 Secondary 24 hour trial with their vehicle, ‘DIY’.
(Read about their 2012 campaign here)
Their entry was received at just 9:14am – so they definitely weren’t slow – and they’ll now be eagerly awaiting for another HPV Open team to withdraw so they can toe the line in November.
Many teams on the Waiting List have been offered places in the Try-athlon, Pushcart or Energy Efficient Vehicle categories as we aim to ensure that as many students and teachers can participate as possible.
Overall and from a technical point of view, the online entry process worked seamlessly in it’s second year of operation:
“The entry process opened up automatically at exactly 9:00am, the website held up to the huge amounts of traffic thanks to our hosts BendigoIT, and the announcements were posted instantly to our website, facebook and twitter accounts – as well as a new homepage banner,” said Energy Breakthrough Convenor, Nigel Preston.
“We received less than five calls from stressed teachers with technical problems this year, which tells us that Team Managers are getting used to the online process.
We received entries by post with cheques in the mail for the first 21 years of this program, so a move to a fully online process was a change that we hoped Team Managers would make the leap.
We’ve received some positive feedback about the system – and of course some negative – and we’ll be continuing to refine the system for the future. But overall we’re really happy with the system and also the overwhelming response. Now we need to try to fit everyone in and look at ways to expand the event.”
If you are currently on the waiting list we will keep you informed of your status.
Be sure to download the School’s Handbook from our Downloads page for all the latest rules and regulations.
