Boosting facilities for students

A new gym, learning space and seminar room have been unveiled at the University’s Eastbourne campus.

The Queenwood Seminar Room and Social Learning Spaces feature state-of-the-art furniture and technology to facilitate student collaboration. Key additions include two edit suit rooms, USB power chargers throughout and fixed and flexible furniture, including coffee tables and collaboration desks.

The Queenwood G30 seminar room has capacity for 54 people. The space is highly flexible and features bespoke desks that can be folded and stacked away. A height-adjustable lectern provides increased flexibility during lectures.

The student desks have been carefully designed to offer a tiered effect. The height of each row, gradually increases to ensure students can keep eye contact with the front of the room at all times.

The Ward Hall teaching gym features the latest weight-training and exercise equipment and space for teaching and learning. Here’s a 360 degree look inside:

Robert Harley, Principal Lecturer in the School of Sport and Service Management, said: “We have created a state-of-the-art teaching and research gym facility from what was an old underused hall.

“The space will facilitate the teaching and learning of numerous students across a variety of courses in both SASM and Health Sciences. The gym has been created in the form of a high performance training centre to allow us to teach our students the knowledge and skills required to go out and work in elite sport and rehabilitation settings.

“I consulted with contacts in a variety of high performance training centres around the country during the design stage of the project. The gym has a flush floor with specific drop zones for Olympic lifting to take place.

“It has six power racks and Eleiko bars and discs, plus a leg press and adjustable cable machine. It contains numerous pieces of training equipment that the students learn how to use to load clients in different ways to develop functional strength.

“For example battle ropes, medicine balls, plyometric boxes, adjustable dumbbells, Bulgarian bags, slams balls, suspension training equipment, three tires weighing 40, 60 and 80kg and a weighted sled for sled pushes and pulls on the sprint track.

“We have three Kistler force platforms sunk into the floor, one in the middle of the sprint track and two that are side by side in one of the lifting zones. These allow us to precisely measure ground reaction forces evaluating the clients’ performance during a variety of exercises.”