Hewlett-Woodmere Public Schools: vApp in Chromebooks with UDS

• Name: Hewlett-Woodmere Public Schools

• Sector: Education

• Students: 3.000

• Teachers: 270

• STEM instructors: 4

• Schools and location: 5 schools located in Nassau County, New York

Hewlett-Woodmere Public Schools in Nassau County (New York) promote the integration of technology into the classes. Early on, elementary school students use Google Chromebooks to participate actively in their learning, advance their research skills and work collaboratively. Students are also encouraged to learn Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math (STEAM) at school with special programs to broaden their interests and help them grow academically. One such program was a three-month-long weekly Robotics Build and Design Class, from October to December, taught by local high school robotics team Team Roboboogie.

During the first term of this academic year 2018-2019, 23 elementary-school students, ages 8-10, were taught by their local robotics team to design, build, program, and operate robots using the UDS Enterprise VDI & vApp connection broker. “Several weeks before our first class, we realized we did not have a way of centrally managing and giving students access to Autodesk CAD programs, given the low-power computers they use in school. The support of the UDS Enterprise team was essential to start our lessons on time”, explained Lawrence Froymovich, the class mentor who was representing Team Roboboogie’s business department throughout the class.

In order to efficiently run these CAD programs, he got in contact with VirtualCable, “a software development company we knew would offer very well performing terminal services. We compared their software, UDS Enterprise, with other VDI connection brokers and it was much easier to deploy and manage, that’s why we opted for it”, said Froymovich.

When they started finalizing class lesson plans, they encountered a complication: the inability of supporting the CAD program on the students’ low-powered Chromebooks. “The UDS Enterprise team was very cooperative, they knew the exact type of issue we faced and they responded quickly to fix it and meet all of our needs”, commented the class mentors.

In addition, the UDS Enterprise team helped them “configuring Inventor online as a virtual application and making it available for our students through a web browser in their Chromebooks”, pointed out Froymovich.

The compatibility of UDS Enterprise with virtually all connection devices, including Chromebooks, enables providing safe, fast and simple access to virtual applications and desktops by using underperforming and low-cost devices. The virtual vApp run seamlessly in these devices thanks to UDS Enterprise. This is mainly due to the possibility of choosing the most appropriate technologies to build the whole infrastructure, since this connection broker supports nearly all virtualization platforms, connection protocols and authentication systems, so a tailored platform can be created to ensure top performance for each project.

“Overall, the technology has exceeded our expectations. Since its inception, we’ve noticed a considerable improvement in the kids’ performance. Without UDS Enterprise we wouldn’t have been able to teach them how to utilize computer-aided design”, stated Roboboogie’s representative.

UDS Enterprise for First Tech Challenge

In their community, Team Roboboogie is continuously committed in promoting STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math). “These kids are part of our outreach effort and we hope to develop them as the next generation for the First Tech Challenge and STEAM”, said Froymovich.

The UDS Enterprise connection broker has allowed team Roboboogie to teach these “young engineers” the necessary skills to build animals, arms, claws, and competitive battle bots using CAD. By doing so, they are directly inspiring the students to take on the First Tech Challenge when they reach high school.

At their last First Tech Challenge regional competition, the Team Roboobogie was awarded the 1st place Motivate Award for extensive community outreach, their team vision and dedication to the promotion of STEM. “This kind of result would not have been possible without the help of the UDS Enterprise team”, expressed the Team representative.

The Team Roboobogie is already planning for the 19- 20 season. They will be trying to host another robotics class and will “definitely consider working with UDS Enterprise again. We worked very well this year and hope to continue fostering a relationship for the next season”, revealed Lawrence Froymovich.

They are so satisfied with this VDI and vApp connection broker that they would “highly recommend it for a myriad of organizations looking for custom virtual software to remedy a preexisting challenge”, concluded Froymovich.

vApp INFRASTRUCTURE

• Broker: UDS Enterprise

• Hypervisor: VMware vSphere (vCenter)

• Connection protocols: HTML5 & RDP

• Authenticator: Active Directory

• vApp OS: Windows

• vApp access OS: Chrome OS

• Access devices: Google Chomebooks

• Hardware: Dell R710 X5670, 48GB RAM

• Virtualized Applications using UDS Enterprise: Autodesk Inventor online – Computer animated design (CAD)