We built the app that organised the visits at UPV's open day
Universidade Politécnica de Viseu's Department of Electrical Engineering welcomed nearly a thousand visitors and dozens of stands at its DEE Open Day. We built a real-time web app, shared by QR code, that let each group reserve stands, see which were free, and know where to go next, with no waiting.
- Line of work
- Custom software
- Location
- Viseu, Portugal
- Year
- 2025
Results
- Visitors on campus in a single day
- ~1000
- Stand status on every phone
- Real time
- Installs needed: entry was by QR code
- 0
A thousand people, dozens of stands and a single day.
What jams an open day is not a shortage of things to see, it is nobody knowing what is free: groups left standing outside busy stands while others sit empty across the campus. The Department of Electrical Engineering at Universidade Politécnica de Viseu asked us for an application that would bring order to the visits, in real time. We built it to fit the event.
The challenge
At an open day this size, the problem isn't a lack of content, it's coordination. Dozens of stands, dozens of groups and a single day. With no real-time information, each group moves blind: it reaches a stand, finds it busy, waits or gives up, and tries again further along. The result is queues, wasted time and a less rewarding visit, both for the visitors and for the companies that came to be seen. The DEE wanted the groups to flow smoothly and every minute on campus to count.
The solution
We built a responsive web app, designed mobile-first and shared by QR code, with no install and no app store in the way: point the camera and you're in. Each group leader had access to the app and, on reaching a stand, reserved it; at that instant, the other groups saw that stand turn busy and could pick a free one instead of waiting. The app also showed where to head next, so no one stood idle outside an occupied stand.
Underneath, it all ran over websockets: the moment a group reserved or released a stand, the state updated on every phone, with no page reload. The scope was deliberately focused on that event, so we built exactly what the day needed and nothing extra to weigh it down.
The result
On the day, nearly a thousand visitors moved through the campus with a clear view of what was free and what was taken. Groups stopped waiting blind: instead of getting stuck at a busy stand, they moved on to the next available one and came back later. The visit was smoother for people and more productive for the companies present, which received groups more steadily across the day.
It was a solution built for one specific event, with a deliberately narrow scope. But it captures what we do: when an SME or an institution has a need no off-the-shelf product solves, we build the software to fit that exact problem.
See it in action
Watch on TikTokBuilt with
Reactinterface
Node.jsserver- WebSocketsreal time
About UPV
UPV is the Universidade Politécnica de Viseu, running degrees, master's programmes and professional technical courses. The DEE Open Day is the open day of its Department of Electrical Engineering.
