Smilie Pushcarts

Primary School students participating in the Smilie Pushcarts must design, build and showcase a machine engineered for speed. Smilie Pushcarts are human-powered – one team member pushes their teammate, who is seated on the cart, along a sprint track and through an obstacle course. This is an exciting Queensland Championship event held each year at TCM.

But there’s more to it than speed…

First, you’ll need an exciting Welcome War Cry to build your team’s confidence and show off your school’s efforts, during the March Past. Your clever cart needs to be built for portability – you’ll need to disassemble it in record time in front of the judges, and every piece must fit through a 100 mm slot!

Then in the Obstacle Course, the eight team members must each complete one lap ‘driving’ and one lap ‘pushing’. Each lap of the course (approx. 80 – 100 m) will include a series of slaloms, turns and short sprints – and maybe a few things we won’t tell you about yet!

In the Endurance Relay, you’ll do the same thing on a straight track, and the fastest team is declared the winner! Finally, the Sprints Relay is conducted over a 50 metre track, and full elimination races will be run until 9 teams remain. Heats, semi-finals and a final will then be run.

It’s easy to get involved – and it’s easy to build a cart!

Categories are available so anyone can be involved. You can race New, Re-used, and Kit carts. Kit carts are commercially available, and we can help you find a great one so you too can be part of the action!

NOTE: change to penalty for non-removal of specified items as shown in the Construction score sheet: Wheels, push bar/roll bar, steering bar or handle, seat, seat belt all to be removed separately during dismantle phase. 1 or more required items not removed: 50% penalty (replaces 10 point penalty). Justification - we want these items to be removable, to challenge the students in hand skills and teamwork, rather than have teams trying to find a loophole and copping the penalty!