EduKarting: Learning to Race
Edukarting is a five day programme for students aged 10-16, which has been taught at school and college campus grounds in Nassau, Bahamas during school holiday periods, since July 2013.
​
Students learn not only about the skills needed to drive a kart, but also learn the skills needed to run a professional karting team and a business. In addition EduKarting focuses on teaching road safety.
Developed from an idea proposed by David McLaughlin, and run under the auspices of The Bahamas Motor Sports Association, the programme was devised and written and has been taught to more than 800 students by instructors Henry Beaudette and Craig Camilleri.
Challenges & Teamwork
EduKarting students are immediately placed into six teams who must compete in a team building exercise that tests their ability to communicate and work together - even though many of the students will have only just met.
The group that completes the task in the quickest time, earns the right to choose which EduKarting race team they will become.
Just like real life, each team has a different budget, a time bonus or penalty, different sponsorship opportunities and naming right restrictions, which the students will need to recognise and use to their advantage as the course progresses.
800+
Students
Learning
Real Life Skills
Each team comes with five different roles for the students - Crew Chief, Mechanic, Finance Officer, Press Officer and Community & Road Safety Officer. Each team must decide who will fulfil each role.
Once the roles are decided, the teams compete over a series of challenges designed to mirror the life of a real life racing team. The final test is a ten lap slalom time trial event, where each driver completes two laps of the EduKarting race circuit in one of the karts as quickly as possible, all the while trying to avoid incurring time penalties.
Before the final time trial race begins, each team will have had the opportunity to gain or lose time through twelve different challenges, which test the individual team members and the team as a whole.
​
EduKarting: Learning by Stealth
Each challenge tests the team in mechanics, maths, English, communication and teamwork, for example, purchasing race and safety equipment within a set budget, or writing and providing a comprehensive safety briefing.
​
Team work and success in the off-track areas of motorsport are critical to how a team performs on the track and their chances of victory.
​
Edukarting’s goal is to demonstrate to each student that the real key to victory is how you prepare and work together off track before the race even begins.
​
​