UMass Amherst Installs Digital Kiosk to Display 130 Years of Football History

Fourscore and seven years ago, UMass Amherst had 130 years of history on its football program and nowhere to display it on campus.

The university only had printed paper media guides to give current and prospective students information on the football program – a mass notification strategy that is creeping higher on the endangered list.

To fix this, UMass Amherst installed a touch-screen kiosk in the foyer of its new Football Performance Center to show off its football program’s past.

The kiosk consists of a 55″ LED T.V., mounted in portrait mode. It was designed by Tightrope Media Services, and installed by Valley Communications.

“As you come in the entryway, you’re greeted by the history of the program, which is over 130 years of history and tradition there,” says John Sinnett, the university’s Assistant Athletic Director. “That’s where the touch screen kiosk concept was born. We can have an official display area that different groups come and see when they walk in the building and they can find any particular information they want to see.”

Sinnett says the kiosk serves four audiences:

• Prospective students

• Current students

• Alumni

• Visitors

“If it’s an alum, he might want to pull up the roster for his team in the 1960s, 70s, 80s,” Sinnett says. “If it’s a recruit, he might want to look up the players who’ve worn the number 87. Some people might want to see information on the band, or what a game day is like, the history of the helmets. All sorts of information is able to be accessed through the kiosk.”

How it works

UMass Amherst’s touchscreen kiosk is attached to a computer, which runs Carousel software. With the software, a page of custom-built content displays information on the university’s football program.

The data is called up by users’ touch; the data displayed on the kiosk’s screen entails stats on players, their backgrounds, details about the coaches, team history, helmet history, even information about the cheerleading squad.

Seth Phillips, Programmer for Tightrope, says most of the data was extracted from UMass Amherst’s current football website and local data bases.

“The most interesting thing with this project is that the stats they were working with were just raw facts,” says Phillips. “It’s a pretty complex system that allowed for the combination of local content and having this persistent data they have in the Cloud that’s constantly being updated with new information. Hopefully they can back-date some of the historical stuff to get a complete feel of the football program as well.”

Sinnett says the biggest challenge during the installation was deciding which information would be presented on the kiosk’s screen.

“We’re talking 130 years of history for a particular sport where there’s a ton of information there,” he says. “You’re talking thousands of players, games, statistics, photos, etc.”

Sinnett says the university solved the problem by putting its head together with Tightrope’s.

“Tightrope was great because we realized we had a lot of information that already existed on our current website, and there were methods to integrate that information into the kiosk and into the backend server,” he says. “We worked together to figure out different ways they could tie into different systems that we already had, so in terms of the roster and game information, it will update itself automatically.”

Despite some tough decisions, Sinnett says UMass Amherst has brightened from the kiosk, especially in the football program.

“Everything’s been really positive with it,” he says. “I think people get a kick out of walking up to the screen and interacting with it, which is something you can’t necessarily do [with other solutions]. You can put a 20-foot-tall graphic up, and you can’t touch it, you can’t have that unique experience with it. With the touch screen, you feel a little more connected to the history. I think that’s what’s neat about it.”

Insight on installing your own interactive kiosk:

Know your audience

Before diving into a kiosk installation, Sinnett says that colleges should be aware of who they are installing it for. Deciphering an audience will make sure colleges display the most appropriate content and information to keep everyone engaged.

“For us, we knew we had four audiences: the current teams, the recruits, alumni, and the stands,” Sinnett says. “We wanted to make sure all those bases were covered in different ways. That sounds straightforward, but knowing those audiences dictated how we needed to react or display certain information, because that’s what these different audiences want to see.”

Go with the pros

Michael Harned, Design Engineer at Valley Communications says that colleges should work with professional AV companies when it’s time to install their kiosk. That way, they’re almost guaranteed to get a prime product and services before, during and after the installation.

“We’ve been partners with Tightrope Media Systems for about 15 years,” he says. “I’ve been doing digital signage with them for roughly 15 years now and I know there are a lot of players out there in that arena. For [this kind of] system, Tightrope, for me, is the way to go.”

Identify your support system

Phillips says that while colleges consider what content they are going to display, they should figure out who will support that content. He says colleges should pick an individual or team that will support the content long term, which includes keeping it fresh, updated and applicable to its corresponding audience.

“In this case, John and his staff had a lot of data to manually update to really make this an engaging experience,” Philips says. “So without keeping up on that kind of thing going forward, or without thinking about who will take care of that, then any digital signage is doomed to failure. Have a good, clear idea of what you’re communicating and who you have to support that communication.”

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