The requirement:

In January 2011 Greneway School came to the BETT show looking for ideas for the task of completely re-developing their schools ICT suite to create a better teaching environment whilst securing the schools new computer equipment. Whilst wandering throughout the various halls they found Netcom’s stand. The enquiry was passed to our sales manager and a pre-sales consultation meeting was arranged and booked for that same week.

Greneway School needed to provide workstations for 30 x pupils and 1 x teacher. To accommodate these extra machines the room needed a re-designed floor plan which would make the room functional and safe for all the pupils working in there. This meant new furniture would be needed as the room currently had benching which was very old and didn’t make full use of the room’s available potential teaching space.

Greneway School was looking for a company who could take care of the entire project including product supply, installation and design.

As a fully compliant NIC/EIC electrical company Netcom were able to provide a full turnkey service

The full requirements were:
• 22 x Single wave fronted secure students desks
• 4 x Corner student desks
• 2 x Single student desks
• 1 x Double desks
• 1 x Teacher desk
• 31 x Secure PC enclosures
• 31 x Secure monitor arms
• 35 x Cat5e data outlet
• 32 x Twin electrical sockets
• 3 compartment trunking system to house new cabling
• Full projector solution including connection to local computer

After

The room design and desking:

Netcom visited the school to carry out a consultation meeting and to run through the schools project requirements. Netcom then began designing the ICT suite ensuring we did our utmost to meet all the schools requirements. The first thing was to design a seating plan to accommodate the students and teacher.
Netcom designed a floor plan on our CAD software. The design included our secure ICT desks with full security features. Each workstation would have a made to measure PC enclosure situated under the desktop and a secure monitor arm mounted to the worktop.
The PC enclosures are designed to house the tower or desktop under the desk. Each enclosure has its own key lock ensuring the unit is completely secure. The monitor arms are designed to be installed to the top of the worktop. They contain a lockable device which ensures the monitor is secure at all times. The arms have tilt and swivel movements for optimal student viewing.
Netcom used 22 x single wave fronted desks, 4 x corner students, 2 x single desks designed to seat one students per desk. We also included a teachers desk which had all the security features plus a set of draws mounted on the under side of the desk top.
The desks also included our under desk cable containment design. This means that you can have a power and data outlet at each student workstation. This was very important to the school as they wanted to keep the cable routes from the PC’s to the data and power provisions short so students would not tamper with any cables. This feature also adds to the health and safety aspect along with the PC enclosures which takes the PC off the floor.

Structured cabling and outlet locations:

Once we had a preferred floor plan we created a cabling plan for the Cat5e user outlets. Netcom would install 35 new data outlets and 32 twin electrical sockets situated around the room. We installed an outlet at each work station which was situated in our under desk cable containment. The 2 remaining outlets where placed to be used for printers, scanners and laptops.

The cables were routed round the classroom through 3 compartment trunking system. This trunking prevents any tampering and also adds to the ascetics of the room.

The new Cat5e outlets were terminated at the cabinet within our patch panels. Netcom then patched all the new outlets into the relevant data switches which we provided and installed.

The data outlets were then performance tested with our Fluke testing equipment. Each workstation would now have its own data outlet ensuring optimum network speed and connection.

Projector and Screen:

Greneway school required a new projector and screen in their ICT suite. The placement of the projector was very important and we designed the floor plan around where it would be situated.

Netcom understand that the students need easy access to the screen. With this in mind the position of the projector was decided before we agreed the room’s new floor plan.

The screen was mounted directly under the boom arm. The projector and screen is situated just behind the teacher’s desk as it is used frequently in lessons.

Remote Cat5e Outlets:

Greneway school wants to offer ICT provisions to the pupils in every classroom. To offer this they need to have data provisions in every room.

The requirement was to install 35 new Cat5e data outlets into the classroom in the school. Netcom would then connect these data outlets to remote wall cabinets. The wall cabinets are linked back to the main comms cabinet in the ICT suite via Fibre optic links.

Netcom installed the new outlets by using internal room trunking and presented the outlets within double gang back boxes.

All the new data outlets and cabinet links were performance tested with our Fluke testing equipment.