Ideally you want to seperate each station to keep the working parts seperate from fried parts i.e. drives, ram, motherboards and chips that are known to be fried. We usually keep the parts pile full of fried components (drives, video cards, mother boards and chips) marked with a 2 X (fried) so kids can easily practice putting things together outside of a case without fear of breaking something. Keep the working parts on a seperate shelf or bin away from these folks and after a student graduates (station 5), they can go back there and start working with your good stuff to build their own Free PC to take home.

1. Normally we set up one long bench, 2 feet wide by 8 feet long and store parts under it. The first 2 feet are dedicated to station 1, a 'look and point' PC that is working and has everything in it. Don't disassemble this showpiece gem. If you don't have the space you can host the labs on a simple card table.

2. Next to the showpiece example kids can start putting components together from the fried pile. Make sure they work in teams and make sure everyone gets a chance to hook up the cables. Also make sure there is no power going to this station; to reduce the risk of cooking anything further.

3. Once they have assembled a motherboard, drives, ram, a CPU at station 2, they learn to put it all in a case and connect the speaker, reset and power buttons and see if they can get a PC to fire up. The key here is speed: they will need to learn to do this step quickly to pass the final exam for this class.

4. Now it's time to bring the PC to life. Using a working PC (similar to station 1), kids learn to run BIOS, FDISK and FORMAT.

5. TEST TIME! Using a simple timer program they test their skills to see if they can put it all together and configure it in less than 20 minutes. Offer a reward, like $20.00 or first choice of the PCs from the pile for the student with the fastest time.

6. Once they pass the test in under 20 minutes, send them back to the PARTS PILE to assemble their own PC. Explain that if they help the other students as a tutor, you'll help them pick out some really nice components (like a CD Burner or large capacity drive). We suggest you save the really nice PCs for the really nice student tutors.

Before hosting a lab it's a good idea to organize your parts pile and donated PCs. We usually fire them up and see if an operating system (like Windows) is working. Once you know the status of a PC, we usually write a number on it that matches a station below. Over time you'll get piles of fried drives and mother boards. Don't throw them out! Those can go to Station 2 for kids to handle freely.

STATION #

1. PCs that are fully functional and 'clean' inside make good examples for station 1.

2. Parts that are known to be fried or need some major assembly to get working. Seperate the fried parts (2 X) from working parts for the graduates.

3. Put the parts and cases you know to be working in station 3 although this station can also employ fried parts if you're running short on working components.

4. This station has 1 or 2 working PCs that may lack a CD rom (not required for this station, but nice to have) and that fire up and work easily. We suggest you stick with PCs that have the a BIOS that employs the DELETE key.

5. The TEST PC should be a fully functional setup with a standard case (tower or desktop) that allows easy access to drive bays and inserting the motherboard.

6. Station 6 is really just station 2 and 3 combined where graduates tutor other students while they build their own Super PC!

HINTS:

• Stations 1, 4 and 5 are fully loaded, functional PC's. Keep them seperate from the other PCs. These are also required for the 102 lab: installing Windows.
• PCs that come to life in station 3 can be moved to Station 4. Some students like to carry the same PC from 3 to their test and get very protective. If you have a lot of parts and cases, that's great!
• Station 2 components should be clearly marked with a 2X if they are fried or a 3 if they work and can be assembled into functional PCs.
• For BONUS PCs (fully loaded and working), we often mark them with a 1 or 6 and offer them to the best tutors or students with the fastest test times in the lab.
• If you don't have room for an 8 foot long bench, that's ok: just do each lab station on a single card table and pull parts from plastic bins underneath.

Hint: when you see the image below
click it ONCE PER PAGE for a special quiz and section at the end.