eSport Excursion

On Friday 7th October, seventy-five students and five staff woke up very early in the morning to be on a train to Melbourne at 6:24am. We were heading to the PAX Aus convention at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, a gaming and eSports expo that gave students the opportunity to engage in competitions, try out the latest games and new demos (including board and card games), watch eSports teams compete in various league games, watch lectures and panels with people in the gaming and content creation industries and meet with tertiary institutes about careers in computer and media arts industries.

Students who have been part of the eSports classes since 2020 were invited to come along to PAX Aus, meaning we had students from Years 9 to 11 joining for the day. This excursion has been years in the making, with an original plan to go each year since 2020.

Unfortunately, due to the pandemic this has been impossible, so it was fantastic to be finally able to take those students who had expressed their interest so long ago.

After narrowly avoiding the rain, we managed to get our badges and join the queue for the half an hour it took to get inside. Once inside, students were given free reign to explore and engage with whatever the convention had to offer. When we met for lunch, it was great to hear stories from students about what they had found, competitions they had entered, YouTube and Twitch content creators they had met and merchandise they had collected or purchased. Generally, they were excited to talk about their discoveries with their friends, or new friends they had met on the journey.

The latter half of the day saw some of our students take part in more competitive opportunities: Tayen Ross joined the DragonBall FighterZ console game elimination competition, a fighting game using characters from the DragonBall universe. Competitors had to win a 'Best of 3' against their opponent to advance to the next round. After a tough first match-up, Tayen came through with the win to take him to the next round, but unfortunately met his match in the second. Tayen said he enjoyed the opportunity to compete and learn by playing against other competitors.

Over in the PC Tournament area, one of our Year 10 Valorant teams was getting ready to compete. Hussain Al-Hussainy, James Downey, Riley Jones, Mortada Alkarawi and Lachlan Clancy managed to play the first round of their competition after delays due to technical difficulties. They got an early lead against the other team and managed to maintain it throughout, winning the game. Unfortunately, they were not able to play the next round due to our need to get back to the train, but they were excited to be able to take their skills to a new stage and beat another school team.

We left PAX Aus at 6pm, with students showing of their purchases and collections that they had gathered throughout the day as we walked back to Southern Cross Station. After grabbing a quick dinner, we got back onto the train to take us back to Shepparton and some students took the opportunity for a much-needed nap after the day!

I’d like to thank each student for being excellent ambassadors for our school during this trip and I hope they enjoyed the opportunity to engage in a scene that many had not been able to experience before. 

William Lees

Director of eLearning 

and Resource Centres