WAB Students Race Towards the Future

WAB Mario Kart Cup

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On February 28, months of hard work, preparation, planning and competing by Middle School students came to a roaring finale in the Blu Theatre. At this highly anticipated WAB Mario Kart Cup, the 2023 WAB ProRacers League crossed their final finish line in front of an audience of their peers. Watch the student-produced video below to experience the action! 

In the league, MS students competed on a weekly basis to win races and earn points, with those accumulating the highest points winning trophies, medals and the opportunity to represent WAB in international tournaments around Asia. All in all, 45 WAB students took part in the league as racers and 16 students qualified for the Mario Kart Cup on February 28. Behind the scenes, however, was a much bigger team including non-players that made this competition happen.

Students ran the entire production of the WAB Mario Kart Competition themselves – from the advertising, visual production, editing, and documenting, to the project management, purchasing, and everything in between. The above video is an example of this – it was entirely shot, directed, and produced by the students themselves (with guidance from WAB’s Visual Media Manager Dreu Pardales and mentor Isaac Pena).

As part of these efforts, students had to acquire hard and soft skills like using Premiere Pro and After Effects, but also leadership and organization skills.

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“I most definitely think this is an experience I can use when I graduate because not only does it allow me to learn more technical skills that I can use to have broader opportunities in what I want to do when I grow up, but it also allows me to work on my leadership skills and my ability to communicate with people,” said Grade 8 student Marie-Fleur.

Recognizing that e-Sport is a fast-growing industry, Mario Kart Cup was introduced at WAB several years ago to promote healthy behaviors towards gaming, boost motivation and morale, and allow students to get into the driving seat of the organization.

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“This year the students demonstrated how important student agency is in our school. The students applied the learning skills they learned in the classroom and applied them in the creation of a gigantic project like this. The students demonstrated that what we teach in the classrooms actually has an impact on their personalities. The Mario Kart Cup has become a tradition in our school, hopefully, next year the students will be able to produce something bigger and better. Who says we can't invite other schools and make this project a model of what 21st century education should look like?” Isaac Pena said.

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