NOLANVILLE — The City of Nolanville, in partnership with the SMART Museum and Texas A&M University, held a STEM Expo Monday at the museum to give attendees the opportunity to “get under the hood” of cutting-edge autonomous vehicle technology. Participants experienced live demonstrations and hands-on learning designed to reveal how self-driving cars operate and the innovation behind them. Texas A&M University professor Wei Li coordinated presentations from three teams of students who have worked on developing an autonomous vehicle from different perspectives. Li is also the founder of the ENDEAVR Institute which stands for environmental, design, analytics, visualization and Research. Li has been at the forefront of bringing smart-city technologies to small communities and underprivileged populations. These students, studying in the fields of computer science and mechanical engineering, have taken the idea behind autonomous vehicles to develop a simulator which could eventually be installed in any motor vehicle to allow it to drive itself. These students are familiar with Waymo, Zoox, and Tesla, but their ideas go a step further, in terms of ergonomics and economics. The idea is to make a more affordable system to retrofit a vehicle of today to make it a vehicle of the future. During Monday’s event, each team explained the computer science and technology used to creating an autonomous vehicle prototype. The first group challenged by the limited access to public transportation and conventional autonomous driving services in small communities. The goal was to develop a prototype to bring tele-driving technology to the rural communities who need it most. And finally, to create a prototype that allows a remote driver to control a vehicle simulation across a variety of network conditions using a steering wheel, pedals and a custom app. The second team tackled the challenge of engineering a system that was economical, universally