Experience the Student-Built SAS Virtual Tour
What began as a high school project has now become a new way for families and students to explore Shanghai American School before ever setting foot on campus.
The idea began during the 24-25 school year, when a group of students created a map and virtual tour of the school. When the SAS Marketing team heard about it, the timing felt right. With the current virtual tour needing an update, the students were asked if they'd want to expand upon what they'd started and host it on the school's website for anyone to use.
They said yes, and teams from both campuses spent the 25-26 school year turning that early idea into fully functioning, self-programmed tours. No outside developers, no vendors, just SAS students figuring it out. The Puxi team, comprised of Preston L. ’26, Kelly W. ’27, and Annabell Z. ’27, worked alongside Leon H. ’27, who built the Pudong campus tour with support from the Engineering Club. The students programmed the tours themselves, shared GitHub repositories, tested layouts, learned new tools, and spent many hours debugging.
Over the course of the school year, the students met regularly with the Marketing team to brainstorm ideas, demo new tour iterations, respond to feedback, and ultimately, gain hands-on experience working with a real client with a project timeline. The teams also exchanged feedback and helped create a consistent experience across both campuses. “Working with the Puxi team was wonderful,” Leon said. “Through this teamwork, I learned new coding skills and gained useful work experience.” He also gathered feedback from friends and adjusted the interface to make it easier to use, particularly on mobile devices.
For Kelly, seeing the project become an official school resource made the effort worthwhile. “Now all these hours of hard work have been converted into something practical, something new families will be able to use.”
These student programmers are already looking ahead to ways they can update and expand the tours. Kelly hopes to establish a student-led group that can maintain the project after she graduates, while Leon is eager to continue collaborating with the Puxi team as the tours evolve beyond their initial launch.
Now live on the SAS website, the student-built tours give new families an early look at both campuses before they arrive in person. With Orientation taking place this week, families can explore the spaces, get familiar with the layout, and arrive with a better sense of where they are going. The tours may not prevent every wrong turn, but they should make the first week considerably easier to navigate.
Click here to experience the tours for yourself.
