2022 been a good year for Digital Technology and Hard Materials. It is the first time that Hagley has competed at a national level in the NZ programming contest and the first time Hagley has competed in the Evolocity contest.

The school's Evolocity program is a collaboration between Hard Materials (Colin Powick) and Electronics technology (Vincent Brannigan). The bodywork was painted by Year 10 Art students.

Levi Herron has also worked on an Arduino monitoring system. The project was made achievable with the help of Evolocity mentor retired engineer, Rod Stuart.

Levi Herron attended the Evolocity Arduino workshop at the School of Engineering, Canterbury University. As well as winning the school a jaycar gift voucher, Levi got to go on a tour of the electric vehicle lab that included an electric ute with insane horsepower and an electric race car. The race car had computer controlled 4-wheel drive with traction control and independent 4-wheel steering, capable of 0 to 100km/h in 1.6 seconds!

Probably the best way to get our EV tested for safety was at the Air NZ Engineering training centre. That is what happened on Saturday 17/09/2022. Georgia Lohrey represented the team and brought back some information on making the EV safer.

The regional Evolocity Canterbury Regional Finals were held on the 5th November (no national event was held for 2022). Currently the rankings have not been published. The real reward has been the opportunities presented to students: welding at Ara, programming and 3D modelling at Canterbury University, visiting the Air NZ Engineering training centre, Demo of UC electric race car, but most importantly taking part in the event on race day. Students were well supported on race day by Evolocity mentor Rod, Colin, Vince and Dale Leckie from Physics, not to mention family and friends of students.

2022 has been about breaking the ice and 2023 is when we will be going full steam (charge).

Vincent Brannigan (Digital Technology) & Colin Powick (Hard Materials)