![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/santiago-1024x787.webp.webp\")
Spanish driver Pepe Mart\u00ed, left, stopped to take photos, with students, including Santiago Zamudino, right. Photos: Natalie La Roche Pietri\/WLRN <\/p>\nBy Natalie La Roche Pietri \/ WLRN News<\/p>\n
For Santiago Zamudio, walking through the pit lane of a Formula E Miami E-Prix race and seeing mechanics assemble an electric race car piece by piece reminds him of what he does in his South Dade Senior High School classroom.<\/p>\n
The sophomore is part of the Electrathon Team, an educational program in which students design, build and race electric-powered vehicles to learn sustainable engineering. Teams compete to see who can travel the farthest distance in one hour on a single, restricted battery charge.<\/p>\n
On an overcast and drizzly day, more than 100 students got a behind-the-scenes tour of the mega operation set up at the Hard Rock Stadium ahead of the Miami E-Prix, part of an international championship featuring high-performance, open-wheel electric race cars with a focus on sustainability and innovation.<\/p>\n
They got to witness practices, peek into garages, try out a race simulator and get career advice last Friday, ahead of the Saturday race at the Miami International Autodrome\u2019s Miami Loop circuit, the venue\u2019s official name for racing events.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is pretty similar by the way that we all work together to actually make the car come to life,\u201d Zamudio told WLRN. \u201cIt\u2019s also nice to see, like, the same teams here doing the same stuff that we do\u2026 which just makes it really exciting to also be part of the electrical team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sporting a thick grey hoodie, Zamudio carried a digital camera with him to take photos of the garages where the cars, drivers and mechanics worked as one unit. His favorite electric race team, Nissan, was there. While he didn\u2019t have the chance to meet someone from the team, he snagged a photo with Cupra Kiro Spanish driver Pepe Mart\u00ed.<\/p>\n
Spanish driver Pepe Mart\u00ed, left, stopped to take photos, with students, including Santiago Zamudino, right. Photos: Natalie La Roche Pietri\/WLRN <\/p>\n
Southgate Senior High School is one of the nearly 30 schools Florida Power and Light, or FPL, sponsor Electrathon teams at. Students from teams at Miami-Dade County high schools were at the Friday tour.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aWe work with the schools for multiple years and then as the students graduate, many of them actually take this into their college life and race in college,\u201d said FPL spokesperson Florencia Olivera, \u201cand they many times come back and mentor, which is what we like about this program.\u201d<\/p>\n
The multi-year program fosters science, technology, engineering and math skills \u2014 or STEM \u2014 as well as critical thinking, problem solving, teamwork and creativity by providing a kit of the pieces needed to out together a fully electric go-kart: the motors, rims, seatbelts, mirrors and a battery. Then, piece by piece, build their masterpiece. Each kit is valued at about $10,000.<\/p>\n
This is the second year FPL has partnered with offered students a special tour of the Formula E Miami E-Prix. Florida is the state with the fourth greatest number of clean energy jobs, according to\u00a0U.S. Department of Energy.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201c\u200aIt\u2019s all about encouraging that creativity, encouraging ingenuity and ultimately that STEM and that path for them,\u201d Olivera said, and \u201ceven working for FPL one day.\u201d<\/p>\n The five participating schools at Friday\u2019s tour \u2014 Hialeah Gardens High, South Dade Senior High, Miami Carol City High, Miami Lakes Educational Center and TERRA Environmental Research Institute \u2014 all have an Electrathon team sponsored by Florida FPL.<\/p>\n Enrique Martinez, a junior at Hialeah Garden Senior High school, noticed a difference in the sound of the electric cars zooming in practice and F1 cars.<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aThe F1 cars are a little bit louder,\u201d Martinez said. \u201cIn my opinion, I would say the Formula E cars sound a little bit cleaner [because of] the whole cleaner energy.\u201d<\/p>\n Martinez has seen the car he\u2019s put together reach high speeds. \u201c\u200aIt felt very real even though it was just at a smaller scale,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n And the Electrathon team at\u00a0Miami Carol High<\/a>\u00a0is the only public school in the nation with an EV magnet program, according to the FPL spokesperson. By the time participating students graduate, they\u2019re certified to work in local car dealerships.<\/p>\n The race series packs qualifying and the race into one day, Saturday, with hundreds of passes into each race and each usually runts 70-75 minutes runs.<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aI think it\u2019s really cool that I actually get to touch like the Electrathon car and then I actually go to the races with the Electrathon team and travel all over Florida to go to races. I think it\u2019s pretty exciting,\u201d said Zamudio, the student at South Dade High. \u201cIt feels like we\u2019re a part of like, you know, a real race team.\u201d<\/p>\n Natalie La Roche Pietri is a writer for WLRN\u00a0News, South Florida\u2019s only public radio station. This story was originally published by\u00a0WLRN\u00a0News.org<\/a>, a content partner with Refresh Miami.<\/p>\n READ MORE IN REFRESH MIAMI:<\/p>\n ![\"Guest](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/66c78b435a7a4290e44ec5609b25f10c7f940f6875de0cb037ae6c02592f55a4.jpeg\")
<\/a> <\/a>Latest posts by Guest Writer (see all<\/a>) \t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Natalie La Roche Pietri \/ WLRN News For Santiago Zamudio, walking through the pit lane of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146136,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[225,227,226],"class_list":{"0":"post-146135","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hialeah","8":"tag-hialeah","9":"tag-hialeah-headlines","10":"tag-hialeah-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}