This past Thursday we put together 25 computers for one of Lincoln Lutheran’s computer labs. The week before I sent out an email to Lincoln Lutheran families asking if anyone wanted to help put some computers together. I had about 12 students, 3 alumni and 1 teacher join in the fun.
We spent a little while in the morning talking about how to pick parts for a computer and where to buy them. Then we looked at a couple of computers that some of us had recently put together. Then we had pizza. I view the pizza as the most vital part of any successful geekfest.
After Pizza was accomplished we broke into teams of two and I walked them through how to put all of the pieces together. Once we had build one in a step-by-step fashion they went to town on the others. Our very talented alumni put the assembled computers through their paces and set some settings in the BIOS.
I think I have been away from our students for too long. I couldn’t believe how helpful and intelligent they were. When we were finished and were just cleaning up several of them came up to me and said, “What else can I do to help?” And after one of the students asked me what to do with the completed computers and I said, “I guess take them back to the Mac lab.”, he replied, “Why don’t I take them to the PC lab. That way you don’t have to move them later?” The PC lab was about 3 times further away.