Mexico. Fully committed to the protection of the environment and the reduction of the ecological footprint, the Technological University of Salamanca (UTS) has chosen to install Casio LampFree projectors in classrooms and laboratories, since, due to their mercury-free manufacture and low energy consumption, they are the ideal equipment for spaces where a high luminosity projector is required, that works uninterrupted throughout the day.
Formerly a subsidiary of the Technological University of Southwest Guanajuato, UTS became an independent institution on January 10, 2012, and in just five years of life has managed to establish itself as one of the technological universities of greater development and technological inclusion of the State. Located in the city of Salamanca, less than 100 km from Guanajuato and a few hours from Mexico City, the UTS is the house of study for more than 2,000 students in the region, whose graduates specialize, mainly, in the careers of Mechatronics, Industrial Chemistry and Industrial Processes in the automotive area.
In view of the accelerated growth that the university has had in recent years, the Planning Department, headed by Prof. Adalberto Sánchez Velázquez, and the IT Department, under the direction of Eng. Luis Alberto Torres Castro, decided to integrate projectors in the classrooms, as a first step towards the achievement of intelligent classrooms and, in addition, to seek a much more didactic, dynamic and effective teaching-learning process.
The cornerstone in this venture were the Casio LampFree projectors model XJ-V2; durable and economical equipment, which not only aligned perfectly with the ecological vision of the university, but offered the performance, power and performance required by students and teachers. "What we do is create an infrastructure that supports all the learning systems that are coming to Mexico today, and thereby support the academic area to teach with greater technological tools, and that students can develop and generate much more creative ideas," says Luis Alberto Torres, head of the IT Department at the Technological University of Salamanca.
Before choosing Casio as a technological ally, the UTS consulted with various service providers endorsed by the Government of the State of Guanajuato and by the General Coordination of Technological and Polytechnic Universities, an entity that administers and manages the functioning of the country's technological universities. The supplier with the most outstanding project was Audiovisuales de León, an integrating company with 17 years of experience and a large presence in the Bajío region.
The installation was carried out by Oscar Guevara, director of Audiovisuals of León, and his team of professionals who suggested the LampFree projectors for their energy efficiency, ease of use, low maintenance costs and – mainly – the ecological approach that characterizes them; which goes from its conception, where mercury-free materials are used, to the low consumption of electrical energy required in its operation by not having a traditional lamp as a light source, but a combination of laser / LED technologies.
"The project consisted of installing the projectors on the ceiling and converting traditional classrooms into intelligent and multimedia classrooms," says Oscar Guevara, director of Audiovisuals of León. "The result was positive, they liked it very much, and so far, after six months we have not had any complaints, observations or calls to perform any maintenance."
The initial deployment was 11 projectors, followed by another 18, installed over the course of six months. Currently, the UTS has 29 XJ-V2 projectors operating daily for 14 continuous hours in the vast majority of classrooms and laboratories on campus. From this first great experience with Casio projectors, the administrative area of the university hopes to convert the rest of the facilities into intelligent classrooms where multimedia content is a fundamental part of the pedagogical process.
With the aim of obtaining iso 14,000 certification by 2019, the Technological University of Salamanca is not only investing in the acquisition of ecological projectors, but also in various environmental solutions and projects that promote sustainability, such as the installation of LED lamps in classrooms and corridors, the reuse of resources, the planting of trees in the vicinity of the campus and even the construction of ecocrete roads, that recover rainwater by filtering.
The university's plan towards a connected future is to provide students with the best technological tools available, in order to train human beings committed to the environment and at the forefront of ecology, sustainability and Information Technologies.
"What we want is for young people to use the best technologies, but that they are as clean as possible, so we selected the proposal of the IT Department and the Audiovisuales de León company, which consisted of adopting Casio ecological projectors," says Eng. Alfredo López Herrera, Rector of the Technological University of Salamanca.
