Designed and built a four-TV video wall as the capstone project for Engineering Design and Development, a PLTW course in high school. The project spanned the entire second semester and was completed in May 2025. The display was mounted on a custom unistrut frame built from scratch and installed on the classroom wall. The four TVs could either combine into one large unified display or operate independently, giving the teacher a much more flexible and visible presentation setup than the old projector system.
The existing classroom projector was outdated, low quality, and nearly impossible to see when the lights were on. Its positioning on the ceiling made visibility even worse for students sitting at certain angles. On top of that, three whiteboards behind the projector screen were completely blocked off and going unused. The classroom needed a display solution that was brighter, clearer, and did not take up the whiteboard space.
Spent the first portion of the semester defining the problem, researching solutions, and narrowing down the best approach. Landed on a four-TV setup as the most practical option because it was cheaper than a single large commercial display, more customizable, and easier to repair or replace individual panels down the line. From there, moved into designing a unistrut frame from scratch to hold all four TVs flush against the wall in a two-by-two grid. The back half of the semester was focused on fabrication, assembly, and installation. Configured the TVs so they could either mirror or extend a single source across all four screens as one large output, or run independently for different use cases.
Building a frame sturdy enough to safely hold four TVs required careful planning around load distribution and wall anchoring. Getting all four panels aligned precisely so the combined display looked seamless took significant adjustment during installation. Routing the cables cleanly and making sure each TV could switch between unified and independent modes without a complicated setup also required some problem solving. Having a full semester to work through the project helped a lot because it gave enough time to go back and revise decisions that did not work out on the first attempt.
The video wall was successfully installed and put into active use in the classroom before the end of the school year. The four-TV setup delivered a significantly brighter and clearer image than the old projector under normal classroom lighting. The whiteboards that were previously blocked became accessible again, and teachers gained the flexibility to use the full combined display or individual screens depending on the lesson.
A semester-long capstone project teaches you things that shorter projects do not. Having extended time meant the early planning decisions actually mattered because there was enough runway to see how they played out later in the build. Working with unistrut also taught a lot about structural planning before cutting or assembling anything, since mistakes in the frame are hard to fix once the steel is mounted. The project also showed how a well-scoped engineering solution does not have to be expensive to be effective. Four consumer TVs on a custom frame outperformed a dedicated projector system at a fraction of the replacement cost.