Our own, Brian Watson, president of Modernfold Chicago, demonstrates how to operate the operable partitions at Rich Township High School STEM Campus.

Transcript

My name is Brian Watson. I’m with Modernfold Chicago. Today we’re going be demonstrating or giving you quick training on the operable partitions here at the Rich Township STEM Campus.

We have a pretty unique setup here in terms of your class space and the operable partitions. We have three different types of partitions that we’re going to be showing you guys here today. We have a glass partition and then we have a couple of different solid partitions.

The other unique thing is we have several different elevations. So it is kind of a unique application, but we’re going to start here with our primary partition. It’s the glass partition separating the hallway space from the classroom space. This is going to be an acoustic layer. It’s a single panel system. That means each panel is going to operate independently from one another. So you’re going to grab basically around each panel edge and kind of pull the panels out one at a time. They do have motorized top and bottom seals so before we begin the operation, we’re going to plug the key in to the key switch, switch it to extend and then the seals will automatically engage themselves once we set each panel into place. Given your unique layout with the curved wall the only place to really put the switch unfortunately is kind of behind the panels. Turn it to the right to extend, as you pull the panels out these are a little bit tall, so you’re going to want to grab a little bit higher on the panel as you can. It is what we call programmable track, so the carriers are automatically indexed to go in this specific direction they’re going to go in, so you don’t have to manually figure your way through intersections and things like that so it’s a little bit easier. But if you want to kind of guide with your left hand to pull this first carrier out, the second carrier will kind of follow around that curve. The lead panel, the top seal is the only one that’s not motorized. If you guys take a look around here you’ll see two little silver contacts, those are going to provide the electricity of the panels and power the seals. So we’re going to line the seal projection up with this actuator that’s located in the track. Get behind it, give it a nice soft push, and then you’ll hear the power go for the bottom motor here. I will caution you, we are on kind of a stage here, so it is very close to the edge of the stage, so just be mindful when you’re setting these up. So the subsequent panels, all we’re going to do is line them up and powers automatically going to be given to the seals. The last panel is a little bit unique as well. It’s got an expanding piece on the edge, so it allows us to position this last panel into place without kind of making a perfect puzzle piece fit. It’s going to be a little bit different. We’re going to pull it out as a normal panel, but then we’re going to kind of back it up and reverse it. So I have noticed we are hitting the sound panels slightly. Again, we’re just going to lock the panel into the adjacent panel. You have a button right here. We’re going to hold on that button. It’s going to automatically extend the expandable mechanism. Once power is shut off your operation is done. So we can go to the other side and set the rest of them up.

Again right is going to be extend, left is going to be retract. So you do have two partitions here to close off the hallway. These are going to be solid panels, a little bit shorter. They’re going to be paired panels, so that means they’re all going to be hinged in twos, so groups of twos. For the demonstration, we’re just going to start by opening up the closet doors.  Always be mindful when opening up a closet door that you don’t have anything in the way in the ceiling. In this instance, we do not. Since the panels are grouped in twos when you go to reach in to grab the panels, you’re going to want to grab the second panel behind it you do need a little bit of a wingspan to accomplish that otherwise the panels are just going to unfold on you. Once you pull the panels out you can go ahead and unfold them. So these panels are a little bit newer the hinges are a little bit stiffer right now. Over time those will loosen up. A little trick as you noticed if you push on the hinge side that’ll make them go a little bit flatter. So when you line them up the jam, they’re going to be nice and plumb for you. We’re going to go ahead and set up the last pair of panels first. We’re going to pull them out. We’re going to keep these perpendicular to the track and go ahead and close the closet doors. On the closet doors you do have a foot bolt on the back end of the left one. We’re going to engage that into the floor strike that’s back there and then close the right pocket door. That floor strike is going to basically give this pocket door a little bit of more stability because we’re going to make final closure to the face of this door. So we’re going to kind of fit this in, nice little puzzle piece. Then we have a discussion on the last panel here, we’re going to rotate it until it makes contact with the closet door. We’re going to give it another crank or two. You’ll feel the tension and the pressure build and then we’re going to go ahead and set the bottom seals for the first two panels. So we’ll open up the pass door and we do have an extension piece on your operating handle that will come in handy here.

So we have three separate seals that we’re going to drop. We’re going to drop the legs first. Again, once you hit the floor you can give it another half turn or so just to put a nice pressure seal there. And then the extension comes in handy on this side here, and then you also have one here for the pass door leg itself. So the pass door leg is designed, you don’t want to drop the seal all the way, otherwise it will not close. So we got it a little bit too tight here. So we’re going to bring it to about a quarter inch above the ground. Then when we close this door, there’s a little plunger mechanism in there that’s actually going to make the seal go all the way down to the floor. I don’t know if you guys saw that drop, it’s minimal, but it does drop to the floor to give you a nice acoustic seal when the door is set up.

So the seal operation is pretty touchy, it’s kind of a guess and check. If you get it too tight, you’ll know right away the door is not going to close. If you see a large gap at the bottom of the door panel, then you know you’re too high. All right, reverse operations, self-explanatory. Basically, just do exactly what we previously did. We’re going to take the bottom seals up first. We’re going to retract the expandable nose. You have a hand pull here, kind of pull that away just to break it away from the second pair of panels and then we’re going to push on the hinges to make them fold. You’re going to palm this panel, pull back, and go ahead and push on this hinge set too.

Alright, so now we’re inside the classroom space here. We have three separate stacking compartments. As you’ll notice there’s a lower soffit here at the west end of the room and then the two closets to the north and to the south. So easiest to set up the shorter panels first. Again very similar to the solid partitions up in the hallway. You do have an exit sign over here that you want to make sure you don’t open too far on these closet doors. Again, we have that foot bolt in the back that needs to be raised. Again, paired panels down here at the lower soffit. So, you want to try and grab around the second panel as best you can. Again, we have those sensors that we want to make sure that we clear before we start to open these things. You have a stop located in the track here. If you look up there’s a stop. So we’re basically just going to run that carrier until it softly hits that stop. Then we’re going to set the bottom seals in place. Again push opposite the hinge side. That’s going to make those panels go a little bit flatter and the stop will then align us with the edge of that soffit for the other panel to come into. Pull this last panel out, keeping it perpendicular to the track so we can shut our closet doors. For this particular panel, the expandable panel, it really isn’t going to benefit us to keep cranking and try and build in a reverse pressure because we have that track stop. These panels are only going to go so far. So once you hit the closet door you can give it another half turn or so and that’s all that’s really required.

For this side we’re going to start with the north closet, set those panels up first and then we’ll move to the south closet. Again in your ceiling you do have some sound panels that we want to make sure that we’re going to avoid. So when we open this closet door. We’re only going to open it 90 degrees and keep it flat open. It is a two-section door. Keep it flat so we don’t hit anything, but it also gives us as much hand clearance as possible to get these panels out. If you do notice, again, we have the programmable track system, so the carriers are going to automatically go where they need to go on their own. These are a little bit taller, so we’re going to try and grab kind of as high or as high to the midpoint way on the panel as possible. You do have some unique tracking in the ceiling. We had to get a little bit creative with some of the tracking. The easiest way to do it is to try and get the panels and do it as one smooth motion. If you try and stop in the middle of these intersections, they can be a little bit harder to get moving once they’re in a standstill position. So again, we’re going to kind of lead with our right hand pulling while guiding with our left on the back end.

Again, we have our crank to drop the bottom fill in the back. And then you can just kind of check this seal, make sure everything aligns with the jam and everything. So if you don’t get that first pair of panels flat and plumb, you might notice that this panel won’t align. If that’s the case, just go ahead and reset that first pair of panels back up. These are a steel frame panel with an aluminum so you’re really not going to hurt it. So once you have it aligned, give it a nice firm shove to make sure that they’re tight. All right, James is already moving on to the south closet.

If everybody wants to jump on this side of the partition, that’s going to make our final closure. Since this is a little bit larger for partition, we have what we call a double ended expandable partition closure. So we have a nosing, both the lead and the trail end. Once you position that last panel into place, it’s not going to move. So you can’t push it forward. So it’s locked in place. So we’re going to start with the front end crank, making sure we’re lined up. There we are. That has a hard stop on it so once you stop you’re done cranking. We’re going to go ahead and do the top discussion on this. The partition is for the expandable nose and then we’ll drop the bottom seal to complete the operation. We’ll come right back up to the top and give it another crank or two. That’ll seal it up as tight as we can.