Riverside’s gymnasium gets a face-lift with some new technology

Riverside’s principal, Mr. Anthony Ciolfitto, has recently upgraded from old traditional scoreboards to the Jumbo-Tron. The CEO of Chatter-High was the first to show off the giant LCD screens at the school’s first assembly.
Two years ago, Ciolfitto realized that traditional scoreboards lacked visual appeal. Ciolfitto canvased for ideas, and thought about a new scoreboard, something better and more interactive; hence, the Jumbo-Tron. They soon began the planning and designing of what today is in the school’s gym.
Besides presentations and displaying sports games, the Jumbo-Tron is also designed to be a teaching tool. “Our hope is that the athletics program and our P.E departments will be able to use it for video analysis, filming athletes, looking at what they’re doing and helping them build techniques,” said Ciolfitto.
The Jumbo-Tron has not been seen often anywhere else, other than at BC place. “We had already seen other people do it, such as BC Place, so we knew it was do-able. We just didn’t know if we could do it in a high school setting, and with our budget,” said Ciolfitto. But news of it has spread fast; Simon Fraser University has come to see it, and are looking into one for themselves.
With the high school budget in mind, Ciolfitto first looked into a set of screen projectors. “They didn’t illuminate very well in the brightness of the gym,” said Ciolfitto. Eventually, they were forced to use expensive LCD screens. “We were actually extremely lucky, in that we had a relationship with Samsung. We approached them and asked if they could help us out with this project,” said Ciolfitto.
Since there were so many components to the project, with the video wall screens and the sound system, the Jumbo-Tron cost a lot of money. Samsung, Riverside’s Parent Advisory Council (PAC) and some other companies helped to lower the $50,000 dollar total to $20,000 dollars. Riverside’s IT administrator, Mr. Randy Shen, also had a large role in bringing the Jumbo-Tron to Riverside. Shen provided his expertise as a TNS Sports Net graphics operator to form the opening sequences for the sports teams and other content. The Jumbo-Tron is sure to add a new level of excitement to activities in the gym.