Analog Way's Ascender 16 Drives Innovative Discovery Center at East Elementary School in Lubbock, Texas

The Lubbock-Cooper ISD (Independent School District) in Lubbock, Texas has opened East Elementary school with an innovative Discovery Center for students driven by Analog Way's Ascender 16-4K multi-screen seamless switcher.

Moyers Group, which is headquartered in Lubbock and has an office in Atlanta, worked with architects Parkhill Smith & Cooper on the unique immersive learning environment from the conceptual stage. Moyers Group is a design build company with numerous national educational and house of worship projects to its credit.

East Elementary's Discovery Center, located at the school's main entrance and comprising two parallel walls, uses large-scale imagery to take students underwater, through a rain forest or on board the International Space Station. Changing content can propel kids through time and space to explore the world around and beyond them.

"No one has ever seen anything like this before," says Moyers Group vice president Swade Moyers. "It's a new take on 21st century learning."

"We have used Analog Way equipment in projects across the US and knew that the Ascender was the way to go for the Discovery Center. The Ascender is the heart of the system. It takes the inputs and scales them to fit the walls; it also edge blends the two Vivitek 10,000 lumen laser projectors dedicated to each wall to create one complete image for each 30' x 10' wall. The projectors have extreme short-throw lenses so the kids can get close to the wall without blocking the images; an Apple iMac supplies the content."

An Extron control system sends commands to the Ascender to switch settings and change the look of the Discovery Center's walls. "We trained the school personnel on how to operate the Extron system, which makes the Center super easy to use," says Moyers. "The Discovery Center is multi-functional. In addition to displaying a variety of immersive environments there's a special presentation mode for showing custom images and audio. The walls can even play other video content to keep the kids entertained when inclement weather prevents them from going outside for recess. The Ascender's different pre-sets and flexibility in changing inputs and images make all of this easy!"

While the Discovery Center displays HD video content currently, the Ascender 16 and the laser projectors give East Elementary the ability to showcase 4K content in the future. "The Ascender has way more capabilities than we are using now," Moyers notes. "The support on-site from Analog Way was amazing. The Ascender has worked flawlessly with no issues whatsoever."

Moyers notes that, "a second new school in the district, South Elementary, will open after Christmas break with an identical Discovery Center and another Ascender 16 system, and we expect it to be just as awesome as the one in East Elementary."