OTDI Completes One of Many Contributions to New Research Center

Working in the Office of Technology and Digital Innovation (OTDI) – particularly if you have been going into Mount Hall to work – it is impossible to miss the extensive, ongoing work aimed at building the neighboring Pelotonia Research Center, formerly known as the Interdisciplinary Research Facility (IRF).

The five-story, 305,000 square-foot laboratory building – which is being built to facilitate researchers to work across disciplines to accelerate new discoveries – involves a tremendous amount of technology, so the project has touched nearly all of the teams within OTDI in some way.

One of the center’s splashy, attention-drawing features is a 20 ft wide x 5.7 ft high “video wall” that the Learning and Collaborative Environments team in Research Technology and Infrastructure Services recently completed installing.

This time-lapse video shows how the installation was constructed one piece at a time. The combined weight of all the components is more than 1350 pounds! 

This extraordinary display is designed to impress and has the potential to host a wide range of eye-catching images that capture the breadth of innovative work that will be accomplished by the teams that will work within the research center. Our teams were tapped to construct the display, which is driven by the same video processing tools that are used by big-name entertainers like U2, Lady Gaga and Pink!

Our Learning and Collaborative Environments teams worked on the video installation in collaboration with our AV integration partner on this project, Ohio Valley AV, and the display manufacturer, Barco. Installation took about 10 days, harnessing the expertise of four of our teammates during a total of 240 hours of work. The installation is actually two independent displays.

The first is called Science on Display, and measures 20 ft wide and 5.7 ft high. It is made up of 50 modules and 100 LED display tiles. The second display will highlight content that reflects the research of those working collaboratively within the Pelotonia Research Center, and though slightly smaller will be no less impressive – as it measures 10 ft wide x 5.7 ft high and contains 25 modules and 50 LED tiles.

This is a fantastic addition to an already impressive facility!