Jordon Christopher
Culmination Project 2020
ENT 4499
12/08/20
Project Reflection
When I found out that every ENT student had to take a Culmination project to graduate, I was in a state of disbelief, and said to myself that I would just do something that was easy that I knew how to do. It was then when Professor Huntington (My technical advisor) told me that if I’m not challenging myself, it wouldn’t really be a project that would help me as a student or foster personal or educational growth. Being that my two tracks are Audio and Video Engineering, I figured I could do something in the course of audio but challenge myself in the process. I was never a person that was big on completing paperwork, or maintaining proper organizational skills for that matter. In addition to this, networking was one of my weak points when it came to audio and video and as a whole. I learned a lot in the advanced audio courses I took at City Tech but I always used to look at it as a part of something I could just skate by on, however this was not the case.
As the world progresses, being in the Entertainment business means always keeping up with the latest technology and having a concrete understanding in how to set up, operate and troubleshoot complex systems. This project I involved myself with taught me that Audio Engineering doesn’t just stop at mixing a 24 track recording and exporting it as a WAV file, nor does it stop at mixing sound at a live event, programming and EQing Speakers or running cables and installing speakers. There is a process that must be done if you as an individual gets contracted by any person, or big company/ corporation to do A/V installation. It would be unwise and unprofessional for an establishment to just give you permission to drill through their concrete and put a speaker anywhere and everywhere and just have random cable runs all over the place, possibly even without regard to prior construction and other various elements.
This Culmination Project served as in depth insight into how the business works. If you get contracted to perform a task, you must first come up with a proposal to give to that company. Within the proposal you would have to figure out what the company wants and what would be the best way to go about achieving that goal. Provide a parts list that tells them what they need, what task it performs, and why they need it (even though they might not care why they need it since they are asking). After this, it would be ideal to show where all of the items would be stored so that it is not an intrusion into their original plans, designated space, or interferes with any prior construction, electrical, networking setups. I learned you have to be strategic about how you go about planning such things because you as the designer may not always be around to set up the system, and or service/ or troubleshoot if needed. Therefore it would be important to have the various documents on hand so that others would be able to work with the information that you provided whether now or in the future.
After this it would be ideal to keep all of the technical files easily accessible (unless for case sensitive/ classified operations) and organized in a way that it can be read by those set to read it. Wiring diagrams, Topology charts, System Documentations, and once all this is done it is important to tally up how much each item would cost to get a grand total and submit a budget to your inquiring committee/ contractee so that they can have the appropriate discussions and get back to you with a yay or a nay to your proposal. I learned nobody will just ask you to do something for them without knowing how much money they are going to have to spend and a solid plan. This business is all about getting it right the first time without mistakes as much as possible, and delivering quality and efficiency so that the company’s integrity can be maintained, and yours as well as an Audio Visual Technical Consultant/ Engineer.
Moreover, being that we are living in 2020, it has undoubtedly taught all of us that you never know what lies ahead. When the Spring of 2020 semester started, we didn’t know what the Coronavirus was and that it would mash up the world in the manner that it did and cause a global pandemic and lead to businesses shutting down and schools closing leaving everyone to go into isolation. When I took on the role of going through with this project in September, we were well into the idea that CUNY would’ve been doing hybrid learning, but that wasn’t the case. With my project in particular, one drastic setback is the fact that all the paperwork is done and the budget is ready to submit to CUNY, but the fact that things have been slow and the department budget may not be able to sustain the funds is unfortunate. Another major setback is the fact that I wouldn’t be able to see this theoretical paperwork come to fruition because no one has access to the campus and no work could take place even if the proposal got approved. To me it would be the most foolproof way of seeing how the Unity System would truly be integrated and operate.
In Conclusion, now that all of the components of my project are present, it would be easier for members of the department to have an idea of how to set up the Unity Server and how much each component would cost to have a fully functioning system. This taught me alot in terms of proposals and paperwork and I also learned more about networking in Audio solutions and what companies could potentially do for their own solutions. It wasn’t an easy process and I havent done anything like this before, and I actually believe that it took me longer than it could have but it was a learning experience.
