Fine Arts and Esports teamed up to bring a whole new high-tech computer lab to Jones this school year. 

Esports Club, led by math teacher and sponsor Mr. Eck alongside Mr. Myer of the Fine Arts Department, both made their case for updating the computer lab late last year.

“It was kind of a coincidence that we both talked to Ms. Troesch around the same time,” said Eck “ We went to Ms. Troesch and told her Esports could use some new machines, and Mr. Myers came to her saying that the Macs they were using to do editing were getting kind of old, so they decided to put us together.”

Despite getting the budget to build the new lab, things were still complicated. The machines needed to be able to support the needs of both the fine arts students, such as Digital Imaging and Photography, but also be able to handle games.

“We conferred and first said, could we meet the needs of both Esports and the Fine Arts Department with one build? Another issue is it’s difficult to buy a prebuilt, and we were having trouble finding things that CPS could sell us,” said Eck.

Eventually, together, they settled on buying the parts they needed and putting the computers together themselves.

“We built them; it was a bit of a challenge. I had built PCs before, but never 30 in a row. It was stressful to find parts that I knew would work 30 times, and we had to work with the vendors that we had from CPS,” said Eck.

Both the Esports Club and Fine Arts Department reached out to students who would be interested in helping to build the machines.

“I just posted to my Esports classroom and the upper-level digital imaging classes to sign up for a spot to come and build,” said Eck. “So we did four days of building with students, with about five or six students a day.” 

Offering students a chance to help build the machines allowed for students who may have otherwise not gotten the opportunity to help in the construction of the computers.

“It was challenging because everyone had different experience levels; some had built five PCs before, and some had never built one. Everyone was good at helping each other, though the experienced students were really good at teaching,” said Eck. 

The finished computer lab allowed the digital imaging students to take video editing to a level they could not with the previous setup.

“We had really old IMACs which don’t have a graphics card, and if you have ever tried to edit video or do any sort of 3D modeling or rendering, it’s really dependent on how good your graphics card is,” said Mr. Myers of the Fine Arts Department.

The new computers process information faster and more efficiently using better graphics cards to speed up the rendering process, not only in games but also in video and photo editing.

“Now these PCs have enough power that students can make creative choices with After Effects and Blender for 3D modeling and animation,” said Myers. “The new machines render things about 40 times faster than the old ones.” 

The new computers also helped the community of gamers in Esports by making sure everyone on the team had a computer to play on.

“Having more computers allows for the team to actually play together, which makes things like building teamwork and feeling closer as a team easier,” said Oliver Oh ‘25

Not only does having the new computers allow everyone on the esports team to play at once it also allows students to experience gaming at a higher level.

“Having more computers allows for people with lower end home computers to enjoy the benefits of a higher performing PC,” said Oliver.