Computers are permanent fixtures in the niches – cubicles, dorm rooms – of everyday life. Social networks, workplace operations, even individual identities have gone to the wires.
But few of the computer-dependent even understand what makes the hardware tick or the mouse click.
Students at Dorsey High School in the Los Angeles Unified School District had the opportunity to learn just that through an after-school program coordinated by the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science chapter of Engineers Without Borders.
Over several weeks, a group of high school students learned to identify the parts that make a running computer, take them apart, put them together, and ultimately take it home.