Teamsters Local Union
Challenge
Smarthome was commissioned to be part of the team that updated the Teamsters Assembly Room. This room was over 25 years old and built in a 1970's office building. As a presentation and meeting space for union meetings, along with the updated interior, this project included new projectors, screens and audio systems. A crucial requirement for the project as this room would sometimes host senators and fortune 500 business leaders through contract negotiations, the system needed to work 100% of the time.
Solution
The Assembly Room is a large room and can hold a few hundred people. Presentation data in the form of powerpoint or training videos need to be easily seen and heard throughout the space. We accomplished this from three fronts. First, at the main presentation space in the front of the room we installed a 156" screen that retracts into the ceiling when not being used. Such a large screen creates an image viewable with text large enough to easily read from almost anywhere in the room. An image this large needs a bright projector, we installed a Digital Projection M-Vision projector that was bright enough to light the 156" screen under full commercial lighting. Second, half way down the seating area on both sides of the room we installed HDTV wall plates and configured 60" flatscreen monitors on rolling stands. These screens can be rolled out, plugged in and now, the same image on the 156" movie screen is duplicated on the monitors for very large audiences. The viewers from the middle of the room to the back can see the presentation on these screens instead of trying to read what may be small text on the large screen in the front of the room. These TV's are portable, so they can be rolled away when there is a smaller group and rolled out when needed.
Lastly, speakers were installed throughout the room in the ceiling acting as sound reinforcement to keep the sound even throughout the space. Everyone in the room is able to hear the presenter in the front of the room, no need to shout, no confusion for the members on what is being conveyed.
In addition, computer wall plate connection points were installed in a number of various locations throughout the room so the presenter could be in the front, middle or back of the room. As presenters would bring their own laptops and that critcal requirement of 100% uptime needed to be met, we installed a Crestron system with a scaler built in. This assures that whatever screen resolution is coming from the presenter's laptop, our system will understand the signal and scale it to fit the movie screen and HD monitors exactly.
Control is from a 10 button keypad mounted in the podium that simplifies startup and shutdown of the system. Audio volume is also adjustable by the keypad via a rotary dial. This simple control assures that just about anyone can walk up and start the system. For advanced control, an ipad running a customized application gave much greater control of the system. This ipad was reserved for those trained on the system for fine tuning during presentations.
