Student Services Center Kiosk
The new informational kiosk in the Student Services Center offers much more than a map of the building. The innovative kiosk provides animations of how the building works, its sustainability efforts, and energy uses; a video description of the “Chico Experience;” campus data updated daily from the campus Web site, and all is fully accessible for disabled people.
The late Greg Francis, formerly executive dean and director of Facilities Planning, originally had the idea of building the Student Services Center kiosk. The concept centered around earning a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) point by implementing a teaching tool that instructs the public about the sustainable efforts designed into the Student Services Center. This sort of behind-the-scene view is seen in the animations on storm water design, heating, air conditioning and ventilation, water efficiency, air filtration, and natural lighting. It also is the reason for the energy monitoring systems. This system measures and documents kilowatt and BTU usage within the building.
Other things envisioned for the kiosk include a video description of the Chico Experience. This describes the Chico college experience as much more than academics. There are the clubs, activities, sports, and most important, as a Chico State student you are now a member of the Chico community.
Other concepts include the building directory and the accompanying video that introduces students to the departments and functions within the Student Services Center. Uniquely, the building directory receives its data from the campus Web site and automatically updates the content each evening at midnight. Other automatic updates are seen in the campus map and directions module. Information about building locations and "search by subjects" are updated from the campus Web site as well.
With Disability Services in the building it became evident that the kiosk's physical design would need to be more than complaint with the Americans with Disabilities Act. It would need to be intrinsic to its basic design. After an unsuccessful search for a ready-made product, it became obvious that we would need to design and fabricate our own kiosk. Its curved shape and large granite base is designed to allow wheelchair access. Full-time, open captioning is implemented primarily for the hearing impaired. The Braille buttons, headphone with accompanying audio track, are designed for the visually impaired.
Another kiosk innovation is the ability to play two HD videos simultaneously to the touch screen monitor and the large overhead LCD monitor using a Power Macintosh computer with two video cards. Equipped with 8 GB of RAM, all the content is loaded into a RAM disk giving extremely smooth playback and fast access to the video content.
The content for the kiosk was determined by a committee assembled by Dennis Graham. This committee included Jan Burnham, Jamie Starmer, Spence Bolich, Glenda Morse, Kaari Martin, Rob Thacker, and Neal Nunn.
The team of people who worked on the kiosk is quite extensive. And as a special enticement to view the credits the viewer will see a time-lapse of the construction of Student Services Center.
Contributors
Project Director
Rick Vertolli
Art Director
Chris Ficken
Technical Director
John Poon
Flash Programmer
Chris Funk
Video Editor
Morgan Schmidt
Scriptwriter/Videographer
Dan Carter
Technical Crew
Jan Costenbader
Ryan Jones
Lewis Guillen
Ron Cervantes
Tom Voden
Dennis Yarnell
Energy Monitoring Programmer
David Stillman
Computer Animation
Randy Wall
Ben Guastella
Alan Weider
Gerry Magana
Eric Flores
Jessica Chin
David Winston
Robert Masteroni
Miguel Rivera
Javier Paredes
Content Consultants
Jamie Starmer
Jan Burnham
Spence Bolich
Kaari Martin
Glenda Morse
Neil Nunn
Rob Thacker
Dennis Graham
Vicky Breeden
Narrator
Peter Difalco
Alice Buchart-Robertson
On Screen Talent
Kirsten Kavanaugh
Samantha Slack
Travis Sluys
Jennifer Ponder
Sierra McQuiston-Lopez
Ozioma Nwosu
Ji Her
Lauren Hallacher
Kristy Seeley
Lee Carrell
Erica Duben
Elliott Tyson
Teng Xiong
Reyanna Garcia
Christine Mosbacher
Special Thanks
Jim Jesse
Dave Abbott
Kathy Fernandes
Dennis Graham
Paul Zingg