Presenting Poway Auto at Night at the Museum
In June 2025, I had the opportunity to present my project, Poway Auto, at Night at the Museum — an annual school exhibition where students showcase their major work from the year. This event brought together parents, teachers, peers, and members of the community to walk through classrooms and view student-led presentations. For me, this was a valuable chance to share the smart mobility platform I had been developing throughout the year, explain how it worked, and gather real-time feedback from a diverse audience.
Setting Up
Our group arrived early to prepare our station. Instead of a traditional science fair-style setup, we connected a laptop running Poway Auto to an external monitor to make the display easier to view from a distance. This allowed us to demo the platform in real time as people walked by.
We didn’t use printed materials or handouts. Instead, we created and displayed a QR code that linked visitors to our vCard — a digital card that included our names, emails, GitHub profiles, and project links. Anyone who was interested could scan the code and save our contact information for later.
The environment was informal but professional. Visitors would circulate through the exhibit space and stop when something caught their interest. Poway Auto’s interface — featuring a live map and route visualization — stood out and naturally attracted questions.
How We Presented the Project
When visitors approached, we introduced ourselves and explained the project in simple terms:
“This is Poway Auto, a routing platform designed specifically for the City of Poway. It helps people find the best routes using live traffic data, local hazard reports, and daily routines.”
From there, we walked through a live demo of the system. Using our interface, we showed how a user could:
- Enter a starting point and destination
- See real-time traffic-aware routes using the Google Maps API
- Report hazards such as crashes or construction on the map
- Save favorite places and daily routines for quick access
- View predictions for how traffic would change throughout the day
We also explained the backend structure when people asked deeper questions — discussing our Flask API, SQLite database, Leaflet-based frontend, and basic predictive modeling using Poway-specific data.
Our live demo worked smoothly and allowed people to see the platform in action, including the map updating in real time and different features like “report hazard” and “favorite locations” being used on the spot.
Audience Interaction and Feedback
The event had a mix of different types of visitors, each offering unique insights:
Students
Many students were drawn to the interactive map and the ability to simulate traffic problems. They asked how the platform was built and what tools we used. Some were interested in the frontend design, while others wanted to know about the backend and database structure.
Parents
Parents responded well to the idea of a platform that could make commuting around Poway easier.They gave us feedback about how the UI could be even simpler and offered suggestions for features like scheduled alerts.
Teachers and Mentors
Teachers and school staff were particularly interested in the learning and engineering aspects. They asked how the project was developed over time, what kinds of challenges we faced, and how we worked together to build the full-stack platform. Some gave feedback on the clarity of our explanations and suggested that we consider long-term deployment options like a mobile app or PWA.
What I Learned
Presenting Poway Auto at Night at the Museum helped me grow in multiple ways — not just as a developer, but as a communicator. Here are a few things I took away from the experience:
-
Explaining Technical Work to Non-Technical People
I had to quickly adjust how I described the platform depending on who I was talking to. It helped me practice simplifying complex ideas without oversimplifying them. -
Understanding How Users Interact with a Project
Watching people use the platform live showed me what was intuitive and what needed improvement. A few people weren’t sure how to report a hazard or save a location until we pointed it out, which highlighted opportunities for UI refinement. -
Getting Feedback That Matters
Hearing suggestions from people outside our classroom gave me a new perspective. Some people thought we should include things like weather integration, route comparison options, or school-specific notifications. These weren’t in the original scope but opened up ideas for future versions. -
Representing a Team Project
Since Poway Auto was built as a team, this was also a good exercise in dividing up explanation roles and making sure every team member could speak confidently about all parts of the project.
Conclusion
Night at the Museum gave us a platform to share the work we had been developing for months with a real audience. It allowed us to test how well the system functioned in a live setting, practice public speaking, and collect actionable user feedback. I walked away from the event with a clearer understanding of how to communicate technical ideas, how to observe user behavior, and how to think critically about the next version of our platform. More than anything, it was rewarding to see people engage with a project I helped build — not just as a class assignment, but as a potential tool with real-world use.