Students from the E-Commerce Capstone attended Expo Fest on May 20 at the Toyota Oakdale theater in Wallingford, CT. The event hosted more than 70 teams in ten different challenge categories. The class from the high school competed in the Entrepreneurship Challenge with their business titled, SenseSafe.

The class’s product is a sensor that notifies a driver through an application on their phone if they have a brake light that is out.

“Figuring out how to make the app when none of us had the background to make it was a struggle, but talking to Mr. Barron let us make a sample interface, which worked well enough and was cool,” junior Rashmi Rajesh said.

Doors opened at seven in the morning and students received awards at the award ceremony at the end of the day at two in the afternoon. Prior to the competition, students in the class worked on a business plan, website, pitch presentation, prototype, and exhibition booth.

“Students are designing the booth and creating marketing materials to promote our business. They have specific roles within the business and job responsibilities to fulfill in preparation for the event,” teacher Maria Giarratana said prior to the event.

In March the class visited Primacy as a class field trip. They used what they learned from the people working at Primacy to aid them in improving their project prior to attending EXPO Fest in May.

“I think it (was) very insightful for our marketing department to learn about different ways to advertise our product efficiently,” Rajesh said.