My mini manstage

[phreekopath]

Merry Christmas indeed!

As some of you already know, and the rest of you will know once I finish this sentence, I work IT at a home for at-risk children. I also used to do some volunteer work, and we held large-scale LANs as fundraisers. Since LANs just aren't what they used to be anymore, I decided to take my passion and my hobby, and try to integrate it into my day-to-day and brighten a kids life a little bit.

With some gracious help from a good number of people, whether it be a large monetary donation, time, energy, sweat, blood, or tears, we were able to make some big things happen.

It's not quite 100% complete yet, but it will be done by the new year. Regardless, I can not contain my enthusiasm, so I simply must let the cat out of the bag... and so I give to you

MY MINI MAINSTAGE

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v73/phreekopath/mini%20mainstage/IMAG0141.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v73/phreekopath/mini%20mainstage/IMAG0142.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v73/phreekopath/mini%20mainstage/IMAG0143.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v73/phreekopath/mini%20mainstage/IMAG0144.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v73/phreekopath/mini%20mainstage/IMAG0145.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v73/phreekopath/mini%20mainstage/IMAG0146.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v73/phreekopath/mini%20mainstage/IMAG0147.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v73/phreekopath/mini%20mainstage/IMAG0148.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v73/phreekopath/mini%20mainstage/IMAG0149.jpg

12/29/2011
NEW PICS

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v73/phreekopath/mini%20mainstage/IMAG0153.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v73/phreekopath/mini%20mainstage/IMAG0154.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v73/phreekopath/mini%20mainstage/IMAG0155.jpg

Sorry for the sub-par pics, but I took them with my cell phone, just after the lights were installed. It still needs a little cable management but we're getting a little closer to completion every day.

Some specs for you guys:

8 Stations each with:

Xbox 360 Slim
Wired Microsoft Xbox 360 controllers
23" 1080P monitors with HDMI and speakers
Headphone out
Microphone adapters to allow Xbox Live chat

All connected to a 16-port Gigabit switch
A 10/10 down/up fiber optic internet connection
8 IP addresses to avoid the need for a router and port forwarding/NAT issues

What do you guys think?

More pics to come later, once everything is done!

[Fir3]

That is awesome! Is this in a hospital? or at your place?

[phreekopath]

Thanks man!

It's in a group home, kinda...

We have a campus with 8 "houses", each with 10-14 children (100 max), from ages 7 to 18, plus 2 additional houses off campus for kids going to college here in town after they graduate. We also have other campuses in other cities. So in all, we service about 200 children/teens.

We have a building with an indoor basketball court, racquetball, outdoor baseball field and tennis courts. This is put in one of the under-used rooms in that building.

I'm hoping that they'll get some friendly competition going, maybe even run a few tournaments. Learn some teamwork skills, how to work with other people and rely on other people. How to give and take advice, and who knows... maybe they'll start an MLG team and go to an event and kick some serious butt.

OT:
Since this is segregated from the rest of the campus, I'm not against the idea of some teams renting out the room to practice before events... so if you guys know some teams in the Georgia area that want to get in some LAN time, bring it on!
I'd have to get approval to have you guys here, and to let you guys into the building for a few hours each day... and supervise... but unfortunately I can't account for room & board... :(

[AntKeyyy]

That is so ballin, it'd be sweet if you get like 2 big screen tvs above each set of 4 so people can watch.

Money permitting.

[phreekopath]

yeah, we're pretty much out of money... but maybe in the future we could put in some hdmi splitters and an amp/switch and put some projectors on the other side of the room...

[chris_cr33p]

this is amazing :)

[Fir3]

Thanks man!

It's in a group home, kinda...

We have a campus with 8 "houses", each with 10-14 children (100 max), from ages 7 to 18, plus 2 additional houses off campus for kids going to college here in town after they graduate. We also have other campuses in other cities. So in all, we service about 200 children/teens.

We have a building with an indoor basketball court, racquetball, outdoor baseball field and tennis courts. This is put in one of the under-used rooms in that building.

I'm hoping that they'll get some friendly competition going, maybe even run a few tournaments. Learn some teamwork skills, how to work with other people and rely on other people. How to give and take advice, and who knows... maybe they'll start an MLG team and go to an event and kick some serious butt.

OT:
Since this is segregated from the rest of the campus, I'm not against the idea of some teams renting out the room to practice before events... so if you guys know some teams in the Georgia area that want to get in some LAN time, bring it on!
I'd have to get approval to have you guys here, and to let you guys into the building for a few hours each day... and supervise... but unfortunately I can't account for room & board... :(

That's even more awesome! Hopefully they can all share... But I guess they could even have 32 players with 4 people on each monitor. That'd be pretty sick if they made an MLG team eventually!

[Seimann]

That is so sick. IRL +rep for you man!

[phreekopath]

That is so sick. IRL +rep for you man!

HAHA, thanks man... but everyone knows IRL doesn't really matter, it's all about online +rep... lol

[PlasTlC]

phreek, this is fuckin sweet.

[Seimann]

HAHA, thanks man... but everyone knows IRL doesn't really matter, it's all about online +rep... lol

lol that is true. You deserve both!

[phreekopath]

So who wants to come help me test it out?

lol

[forefront]

I just realized that the title of this thread is "My mini MANstage". Is this where you will keep all your mini men?

[SniPeZiLLa]

That is sick man and its awesome what ur doing! :)

[chris_cr33p]

I want this now inv me over!!!

[phreekopath]

I just realized that the title of this thread is "My mini MANstage". Is this where you will keep all your mini men?

It's ready and waiting for you...





I want this now inv me over!!!

Sure thing, but Forefront got first dibs...

[Phoenix]

o god phreek. you need to stop flirting with people over the internet

[phreekopath]

o god phreek. you need to stop flirting with people over the internet

U jelly...

Moving on gentlemen... hoping to finish this either today or monday, final pics (and maybe even some action shots) will be soon!

[Spankem]

this is prettty sick, hope the kids enjoy it. As for the lighting behind the monitors, personally it'd hurt my eyes, because it does just from looking at the pictures. It looks sick, so screw the strain on the kids eyes :P

[phreekopath]

It's not near as bright as it looks... like i said, cell phone pics...

They're just like christmas rope lights, and the monitors are mounted so low that you can't even see them directly when you're sitting in front of them...

I could always move them underneath the tables... it's a work in progress

[phreekopath]

12/29/2011 added photos to first post

You can see better how over exposed my camera is, so the lights in the background aren't as bright as the monitors (even when they auto-dim from not being played with for 5+ minutes)

[KnightyKnight]

Nice job Troy!

[phreekopath]

thanks Alex... lemme know when you got some local scrims ;) I'll make you a good deal on the room

[Spankem]

I'm about to blow your mind.... My last name is Troy 0_o

[Phoenix]

im about to blow both of you guys minds.... my middle name is troy!.................................JK sorry i couldent resist

[phreekopath]

I'm sad now :(

My headset idea didn't really work out... so i wasted $40 on headsets that we can't use lol...
Oh well, I'm sure we can use them somewhere else.

Looks like I'm going to have to try to get my bosses to buy some cheap Turtle Beach XLC's or something similar...

Do you guys know any other cheap headsets that are xbox compatible with game sound AND microphone?

[Dragon Eat Kidz]

wow nice dude

[oCuda]

looks really cool. great thing your doing also.

[phreekopath]

i'd love to get pics of the kids playing on them but, unfortunately, we have to do a lot of paperwork in order to publically use pictures of the kids so that probably won't happen :(

[Small]

This is just phenomenal. I am absolutely in love with this set up....The lighting! OMG!

Love it!

[phreekopath]

Hey guys, I have a problem I hope someone here knows how to solve.

So far, the xboxes do not have live connectivity, so I can't do fileshare searches for MLG gametypes and maps etc...

Is there a way to transfer using a flash drive or something to get those settings onto the xboxes?