The Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College is known worldwide and is home to the Billy Graham Museum. It also houses a 500-seat auditorium and several classrooms. One of the larger classrooms recently came due for an audio/video refresh and the college requested to have Zoom Room functionality added.
Through a joint effort between Epic and Wheaton College personnel, we drew up a plan and got to work. The system includes dual front displays using projectors and motorized screens. LED displays serve as dual rear monitors. The room can function in classroom-only mode for standard presentations and instruction as well as Zoom mode.
In Zoom mode, the room makes use of a front camera to view the audience and a rear presenter camera. We deployed a Creston Flex-series Zoom Room system in conjunction with a QSC Q-SYS DSP to handle the microphones and echo-cancellation.
Several hanging microphones are used to capture voices from the audience. Building mechanical noise presented a challenge as it was easily picked up by these microphones, but we tuned the QSC DSP to resolve the issue.
Instructors control the room via a single 10″ touchscreen on the front desk. For added simplicity, a dedicated keypad for volume and camera control was included. Now complete and used daily, this room serves its purpose and gives Wheaton College another option for distance learning and remote collaboration.