Members of the school community have come together to revitalize room 807, working collaboratively to create a useable media annex. Audiovisual (AV) Director Evan Foreman and  Technology Applications Specialist Andrew Marshall have worked together from the beginning, starting with the grant writing process, to obtaining the grant sponsored by the Farmington Public School Foundation (FPSF), to finally creating a physical layout and overall vision of how to utilize this “Edge Media Space.”

  According to Foreman, this new room will not only allow AV students to do much better work with the 9:05 news, but be available for the entire school community as a suitable audio recording space.

  “We are excited to get the room up and running over the course of this year. We already have some audio books for elementary students recording sessions set up for soon after the room becomes functional,” Marshall said.

  Both Foreman and Marshall have consulted with members of other departments to ensure that the technology in this room was not redundant of other rooms in the school.

  Not only has this been an effort between Foreman and Marshall, but other faculty members and students have been of assistance to modernizing room 807.

  For instance, the 3D design class, taught by Applied Arts teacher James Corrigan, has contributed by creating acoustic diffusers for the room to help eliminate a significant echo problem.

  Additionally, Construction teacher Jeff Teravainen along with his students have been working to fabricate two counter tops and two wall- hanging shelves for room 807. Two students were project managers, juniors Chris Hillemeir and Lilly Giarnella, had sheets with the designs and dimensions. They would double check everything to make sure it matched what was on paper. Once all the material was cut and ripped to size, all of the students in the class worked collaboratory to construct the tables and shelves.

  Junior Tuck Meehan has been working on the room with his second period construction class and is excited to see the outcome.            

  “I hope that the room turns out as good as it looks on paper.  This has been a project that a class of only five kids have been working on since the first day of school.  The period two Construction 2 class worked very hard on this project. I think that the final outcome of the room will be outstanding,” Meehan said.

  Teravainen has enjoyed working aside Foreman and the AV students. Most notably, he has appreciated the spirit between the departments despite challenges that have arose during this construction project.

  “One significant challenge is the scale of the project. One counter and shelf pair is 12 feet in length and the other is 16 feet. We have to be creative to accommodate a project of that size in our shop, but it provides an opportunity for our students to be problem solvers,” Teravainen said.

  Foreman added that this collaborative environment has the ability to engage young people. He is looking forward to pursuing the process of constructing, and putting room 807 to use in the near future.