Established in 1990, Temasek Polytechnic (TP) is one of the leading institutions of higher learning in Singapore. In the wake of COVID-19, TP adopted HyFlex learning, allowing students to attend lessons in-person, remotely, and on-demand. TP engaged Digiworz Pte Ltd for AV system design and integration services to accomplish AV system HyFlex makeovers in ten learning spaces. Digiworz used the Lenovo ThinkSmart® Core for Microsoft Teams® Rooms unified communication (UC) engine for for connectivity between the HyFlex rooms and remote students. Extron was selected to supply AV switching, distribution, control, and audio equipment.
“Full Teams Room solutions are rare in Singapore’s educational institutions. We broke new ground with this Teams-based HyFlex AV system design,” says Terence Toh, Assistant Sales Director at Digiworz. “Extron’s unwavering on-site and remote support got us through every challenge. The end product is an AV system that provides Temasek Polytechnic with smooth, effective HyFlex teaching and learning experiences that work reliably every day.”
The HyFlex rooms are equipped with an 86″ touchscreen interactive flat panel display that serves as a whiteboard, plus a standard flat panel 86″ secondary display, and a 65″ confidence monitor. An MGP 641 creates multi-window layouts to display up to four video sources on in-room and far-end screens. The multi-window content can include lecture content, images from in-room PTZ cameras, and images from remote students’ webcams. Ceiling mounted beamforming microphones capture voices of lecturers and students, providing audio to the UC engine to send to remote students and also for aiming PTZ cameras at those speaking. A DMP Plus audio DSP processor performs audio echo cancellation. Room occupants hear sound through eight SoundField ceiling speakers driven by an XPA amplifier. An IPCP Pro control processor integrates with the ThinkSmart UC engine via LinkLicense for user interfaces to perform room AV control.
