Building your own car and racing against people sounds like a dream to many, and that’s exactly what goes on in the Electrathon Club. According to GA Electrathon, Electrathon, under Technology Student Association (TSA), is a student-led electric vehicle racing competition where high school teams from the TSA design, build, and race electric-powered cars. All the designing and building leads up to the competitions themselves, which is what many students get the most excited about.

“The goal of Electrathon is to compete in a single endurance race, which is one hour long around a track,” said Josh Loventhal (‘26). “The competition is based on which team can complete the most laps in that one hour on a single battery charge. We race in the standard battery class, which uses a lead-acid battery to power the car.”

The club has faced several challenges over time; after being dissolved during the COVID-19 pandemic, it almost didn’t return. However, a new group of students stepped up and revived the club, bringing it to new heights.

“It’s been around since 2015, and that group built Ollie, the old car,” said Alex Alexandrov (‘26). “Then they shut down for COVID with just the Ollie, and then we revamped it last year, 2024 to 2025; we built our kit car and raced it at SLC.”

After the revamp, the club decided to structure itself into four major teams for efficiency and to give a clear role for each member.

“The team is split into four main groups: Structural, Electrical, Design, and Mechanical,” said Nolan Silver (‘25). “Each team covers a different major aspect of the car, and we track all our work in a shared notebook. Additionally, everybody in the club has a basic understanding of all the roles. We do this so communication between teams is easy since no extra explaining has to be done.”

Even though significant changes were made to the club, it didn’t stop the group from succeeding in competition.

“We achieved top ten finishes in both of our major conferences, which was a big milestone for us,” said Loventhal. “To give a benchmark of how good it is for us: the year before, we didn’t finish either of those races, so we went from not finishing to top ten finishes in both the major competitions.”

In addition to facilitating success and growth on the track, Electrathon helps students develop off of it. The skills students can acquire from the Electrathon can be practical for those entering an engineering field, and the opportunity to operate semi-autonomously, with a tight-knit group, is a skill that is said to help anybody.

“A lot of us are currently in a mix of Electrathon and engineering; we know how to use all the engineering classroom machines needed for the creation of the car,” said Daniel Adekunle (‘26). “Also, in terms of communication skills, it’s definitely helped us in the way that we document our work and the way that we plan out for the future, and then in the way that we share with other people and collaborate with them.”

For many members, Electrathon is a place where people of similar interests and passions can join a community built upon teamwork, communication, and creativity.

 ”Electrathon is a community of car enthusiasts as well as engineering students and other people who just enjoy the field of engineering,” said Silver. “We work on kit cars and custom-built cars, and we overall have the goal to further our knowledge and experience in motorsports, but also in engineering as a research and design field and just participate in a club we are passionate about.”