Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia recently unveiled a new, high-end update to its computer-aided design lab in Randolph Hall.
The updated technology in the Virginia Tech CAD Lab includes 28 new quad-core Intel i7 iMac computers, each with dual-display screens and 16 gigabytes of RAM. The lab is open to all Virginia Tech students, faculty and staff, and enables them to multi-link with partner university labs from around the world via webcam and high-end videoconferencing equipment with projection video.
Jan Helge Bohn, director of the Virginia Tech Computer-Aided Design Laboratory, said the new equipment allows students to view video in a group. By connecting a laboratory computer to an HD-TV, LED monitor or overhead
DLP projector, professors are able to involve more students in a project and encourage participation.
“When you have six students looking at a 12-inch screen, that’s not a good thing,” Bohn said.
Virginia Tech is internationally recognized for its engineering and computer science disciplines. The university offers courses in biomedical engineering, microelectronics and nanotechnology to more than 2,000 graduate students.
