Custom-Designed Mobile Classroom to Train Building Contractors at Disaster Recovery Areas

Holt Experiential designed and upfit a 43-foot mobile classroom in a custom-built gooseneck trailer that can be transported anywhere in the contiguous United States to provide temporary home installation training for disaster relief.

After a natural disaster, when thousands of people have lost their homes, building contractors arrive to install semi-permanent manufactured homes. To ensure these manufactured homes are installed properly, inspectors are trained on the key installation steps.

Holt designed and built a mobile training lab that performs as both a transport for all materials and equipment and as a demonstration environment for walk-thru training to complement classroom education nearby. The vignettes and monitors inside the trailer are easy to activate once on site.

Interactive training is provided in four vignettes within four trailer slide-outs. Each vignette focuses on an important step of manufactured home installations:

Site Preparation and Enhancement
Pre-Installation and Anchoring
Utility Connections
Skirting, Steps, Rails + Platforms

A fifth area the head of the trailer focuses on proper paperwork training.

To make inspector training more engaging, Holt designed and produced for each vignette multiple infographics, three dimensional models, and staged props of the products and materials contractors typically use on site while installing manufactured homes. The training content shows both proper and improper installation methods.

Hands-on, life-sized props include electrical boxes, utility (water, electric, sewage) parts and connections, and a concrete block chassis support pier assembly. Some of the props can be changed depending on the local needs in different geographies around the country and pulled out of the trailer for training in a classroom or conference room environment nearby.

Holt also designed and built 3D scale models of support piers and entrance ramps as educational tools.

Besides the four vignettes, there are two TVs to provide additional video content during classroom settings.

Holt included other functional features in the mobile trailer:

Multiple cabinets to showcase materials during training and to provide secure storage during transport.
LED lighting in the trailer and slide out ceilings highlight the vignettes, props, and infographics, and illuminate the main body of the trailer.
To adapt to temperatures anywhere from Maine to Arizona and Summer to Winter, Holt installed three Bluetooth-controlled HVAC units in the ceiling.
A wheelchair lift extends out of a curb side door to provide ADA-compliant handicap access.
A lighted storage bunk over the gooseneck, accessed via a door with gas shocks, for set-up tools, spare scale models, and (4) printed infographic pop-up displays for nearby classroom instruction.
During transport, the aluminum exterior trailer stairs are secured by tying them down to D-rings in the floor.
Non-slip black rubber coin flooring installed for safety and durability.
A rear fold-down deck with aluminum stairs, railings, and a remote-controlled awning. Access from the rear deck into the trailer is made through a typical 6’ wide glass storefront double door with soft door closers and etched vinyl logos.

For ease of setup, the trailer self-levels on site, and its four slide outs extend and retract by simply pushing buttons.

Holt also provided a detailed set up manual, that guides a driver through the sequence of parking, opening, and setup for the 43’ Manufactured Home Unit Mobile Training Trailer. Plus, a video animation showing the steps to building the Manufactured Home Unit itself.