Compute a Computer 2024

       On the final day of our Compute a Computer J-term, we began preparing our presentations for Friday's exhibition. The presentations will be about the computer builds made in the term and their specs.  This blog will tell you, the viewer, how we made them and the practice presentations done.      By the final day, we'd all finished our builds. We all set up Windows and tested our PCs for the first time. By this point, we'd finished the J-term, but we still had one more thing to do: prepare for the upcoming J-term Exhibition. Through a presentation format, we decided to go over our experience building PCs during the term and talk about our computers and their specs to parents and schoolmates.      In preparation for Friday's J-term presentation, we created our presentations, each of us making a single slide based on our specs and putting it on one collective slide deck. The slides would include the following: our PSU(heart), CPU(brain), motherboard(skeleton), CPU co

  From 8:30 to 11:30, we dove into the hands-on experience of constructing our very own PCs with the components we had purchased from Micro Center.  After the lunch break, from 12:30 to 1:15, we transitioned to the software side of things. We installed and setup Linux on our newly crafted computers. Once the Linux installation was complete, a sense of accomplishment filled the entire room.  The remaining two hours, from 1:15 to 3, we had free time with our freshly minted computers. Today we did not only equip practical hardware knowledge, but we also fostered a sense of camaraderie.

  Today was the final day of Compute A Computer. It was a victory lap for the most part, but not without a few hiccups early on in the day. We began by installing an operating system on everyone’s computer. Some people chose Linux, but the vast majority of us are using Windows 11, because it’s more user accessible and Aiden was able to transfer it to our new computers easily. We also began downloading various apps on our computers, to test their capabilities and design activities for the rest of the day.  We played some Minecraft, some Red Dead Redemption, and finished the day with a competitive game of skribbl.io.  We also finished up our J-Term presentation, which we’ll be presenting next Friday. Overall, I would say the class has been a resounding success! I’ve really enjoyed seeing everyone’s computers come to life and it’s been extremely rewarding to see a class I created be so successful and fun for everyone involved.   I encountered a couple hiccups along the way, including havi

Wednesday, January 17th, 2024 On Wednesday, the day after the freeze, we started to put together our PCs. We were all very excited to get building, and we didn't waste a minute. Our first order of business was prepping our cases and securing our CPUs safely in our motherboards, which required some serious caution, as the CPU is the most fragile part of a computer. We had to wear static bracelets which removed the risk of accidentally shocking our CPUs with whatever electrostatic charge we had built up on our bodies. I was especially paranoid about this step and I wore the bracelet almost the whole time I was building my PC. The next steps were getting the motherboards into our cases, installing our power supplies, and installing all of the wiring.  With our motherboards secured, we needed to add the rest of our components to complete our computers. We didn't get everything installed in one day, as there was tons of troubleshooting, relocating, and reinstalling of our parts. The

    The day started with double-checking our builds for compatibility and stock before going to Micro Center. With an early lunch and a game of Uno, we were ready to depart to Micro Center to purchase our parts. While in Mirco Center we went to the back to find all our planned parts. We didn't run into any problems at Micro Center. We had three employees help us find everything that we needed. We anticipated that we would run into problems at Micro Center so we budgeted the whole afternoon for the trip. We didn't need the whole afternoon to find everything, so we decided to walk over to Chick-fil-A. After eating a second lunch, it was time to get all the parts back to school. Today was an exhilarating day and we all really enjoyed it. We are all very excited to get back on Tuesday to build!

 How It Works! Compute A Computer's Way Of Sharing Back to the World - Jan 9, 2024 By Aiden C - Compiled From Presentations By Gustavo, Ryan, Kien, and Myself  ---   On day 2 of our J-term, everybody in Compute a Computer made presentations on each computer part. This blog is a synopsis of those, explaining to you (dear reader), how each one works! We wanted to help give those interested in our course an idea of what we're doing and what we're learning. The motherboard is the first part of a computer I'll be talking about in this blog, and it's like the backbone of the computer. It's what every other part of the computer plugs into, and it's how all externals (mouse, keyboard, storage, fans, etc) connect to the CPU, GPU, RAM, and other on-motherboard computer parts.     The largest part on most motherboards, aside from the cooling, is the CPU slot. It consists of a square slot where the CPU is placed, and usually has around a thousand holes for the pins on t

  RAM Presentations:  You’ve probably heard of RAM before from someone tech-savvy or complaining about their computer's slowness. But what is RAM? Well, essentially we learned that it’s the computer’s short-term storage or memory. It stores data quickly and allows the computer to load applications without buffering on a loading screen for hours. Let's say you opened a window and googled “Cute cat photos” then you opened another window and googled “Cute dog photos” Ram is the reason why you’re able to open both windows without closing one. Googling “Cute cat photos” stored the prompt as data in the memory, this means you can re-open the window without the computer needing to reload it.  We learned that there are three types of RAM: SRAM, DRAM, and Flash-Ram. SRAM is directly connected to the CPU, it is fast and compact, but, the price range for it is very high. DRAM on the other hand is larger and slower than SRAM however this makes it a lot cheaper and easier to get. Both SRA

CPU: The CPU is the powerhouse of the computer. The CPU contains three parts the ALU (Arithmetic Logic Unit), the control unit, and the register set. All three parts work together to process information and execute functions. The information or function is sent through the control unit then the control unit will send it to the ALU the ALU will solve or execute the function while it is solving the problem it will put parts of it into the register set to come back to it later. Once solved the information will be sent up to the control unit and finally the control unit will export the solution.  When buying a CPU there are multiple things that need to be accounted for such as the brand and cores and threads. There are two primary brands that sell CPU’s Intel and AMD. Intel is known for having better CPU’s that are high-performance. AMD is well known for being cost-efficient. Both brands produce good-quality CPU’s it is up to the buyer to decide what they need. Another thing to consider wh

Today was our third day of Compute a Computer. We started the day by dissecting some computers to learn how and where all the pieces were. One of the things we learned was that sometimes computers use the metal of the case as one of the antennas. Our student teacher took the case off and we were quizzed on what each piece was and where it was, as well as that we were told how to handle the pieces so that we will not break them. After lunch, we were released from learning and finished picking out what would be on our builds (With our student teachers' help) which we will go and buy tomorrow, and then we can put together our builds.  During this experience, I learned a lot, mainly, that computers are super fragile, did you know that if you don't wear a shock bracelet you can fry your CPU and that is the end of your computer, and touching any of the connectors will mess them up and that's the end.  Overall this day of the course was very informative. 

Today was our second day of "Compute a Computer". We started our day off with a lesson about CPUs. The Central Processing Unit is the heart of the computer. We learned all about how the CPU powers the computer and how the memory works. We followed this up with a fun online quiz about what we had learned. This was difficult because computers are a very complicated topic. Fortunatley, everyone did well and had a good time! The next activity was our presentation. We all displayed a short slideshow about one component in the computer. This ranged from the motherboard to the cooling system.       During the afternoon, we began to design our personal computers. Student-teacher Aiden Cunningham gave a short talk about what we need to look out for when choosing our parts. We all were given a $500 budget and began to choose our parts. This was a big test becuase many of the computer components are very expensive. We will continue to design our computers for the rest of the week and we

  Our day began with our student teacher, Aiden Cunningham, leading the class with an introduction into our computer course. In the morning we learned about the different computer parts that go into "computing a computer" and how each piece operates. Later, we went into groups of 2 and began making presentations to learn more about the specifics of these computer parts. My partner and I studied the inner workings of the motherboard, while other pairs did the same with different parts that we were introduced to in the morning. The positive vibes in our group have us excited for more learning in the upcoming sessions. The parts we researched on were; the CPU, GPU, RAM, storage (SSD's and HDD's), and the different ways to cool the CPU (Fans & water cooling). Making presentations together made learning fun!     (Presentations that were made) Overall this day was fun and productive, and our group and I are excited for the rest to come! We're ready for more compute