2008 Woodie Awards
New PSU sign shorts out during storm
Doug Graham/Collegio Editor in Chief
Issue date: 5/8/08 Section: Front Page
The new full-color electronic sign now advertising Pittsburg State events on Broadway comes with a bevy of features - video playback, 16.5 million colors, and higher resolution than the old one - but it's not without problems. For one, it might be too bright.
"I had lunch with some kids and one of them said she thought she was being pulled over by a police car (when she saw the sign)," said Ron Womble, director of public relations. "If it is too bright, we do have the capability of ratcheting that down just a little bit. But generally you start out with it doing anything it can do."
Womble is in charge of programming the new sign, which PSU paid about $40,000 for after the old one broke several months ago.
"I think we'll discover things that we can use it for that we haven't thought of before," Womble said. "For example, I can imagine, say, that we had a baseball game scheduled on Saturday, you might have just a couple of seconds of somebody swinging a baseball bat, somebody making a great play, and lead into the message about Gorilla baseball."
The sign was hoisted into place by a crane on Tuesday afternoon, May 6.
The sign was up and running by Tuesday night, shedding bright blue and red light from a Pepsi logo onto nearby streets.
The Pepsi animation played in an infinite loop because Womble hadn't uploaded much else, but by Wednesday morning, the sign was advertising various campus events. Unfortunately, the sign started to malfunction due to a possible loose connection during Wednesday's rainstorm, so Womble shut it down.
"Whenever there's a new installation like this, you always kind of look for some bugs and have a shakeout time," Womble said. "The good news is, I'm learning the software. We're going to make sure there aren't any leaks or any other issues that are causing these initial problems, but we'll probably wait until the sun comes out."
John Patterson, vice president for administration and campus life, says that Pepsi and Commerce Bank sponsor the sign, which originally cost about $140,000 to install seven years ago. But when the time came to replace the sign, the university had to pay for it, so they put it out for bid.
Darrell Lister, a representative for the sign's manufacturer, says the sign represents the latest and greatest technology in widespread commercial use.
"Pittsburg State was well ahead of the time," Lister said. "They had the first color sign in the state of Kansas as far as I know."
"I had lunch with some kids and one of them said she thought she was being pulled over by a police car (when she saw the sign)," said Ron Womble, director of public relations. "If it is too bright, we do have the capability of ratcheting that down just a little bit. But generally you start out with it doing anything it can do."
Womble is in charge of programming the new sign, which PSU paid about $40,000 for after the old one broke several months ago.
"I think we'll discover things that we can use it for that we haven't thought of before," Womble said. "For example, I can imagine, say, that we had a baseball game scheduled on Saturday, you might have just a couple of seconds of somebody swinging a baseball bat, somebody making a great play, and lead into the message about Gorilla baseball."
The sign was hoisted into place by a crane on Tuesday afternoon, May 6.
The sign was up and running by Tuesday night, shedding bright blue and red light from a Pepsi logo onto nearby streets.
The Pepsi animation played in an infinite loop because Womble hadn't uploaded much else, but by Wednesday morning, the sign was advertising various campus events. Unfortunately, the sign started to malfunction due to a possible loose connection during Wednesday's rainstorm, so Womble shut it down.
"Whenever there's a new installation like this, you always kind of look for some bugs and have a shakeout time," Womble said. "The good news is, I'm learning the software. We're going to make sure there aren't any leaks or any other issues that are causing these initial problems, but we'll probably wait until the sun comes out."
John Patterson, vice president for administration and campus life, says that Pepsi and Commerce Bank sponsor the sign, which originally cost about $140,000 to install seven years ago. But when the time came to replace the sign, the university had to pay for it, so they put it out for bid.
Darrell Lister, a representative for the sign's manufacturer, says the sign represents the latest and greatest technology in widespread commercial use.
"Pittsburg State was well ahead of the time," Lister said. "They had the first color sign in the state of Kansas as far as I know."
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