Middle School Project

[ForLocks]

I'm in middle school and we have to do a project on our geeky interests  (it's called "Genius Hour"). My geeky interest is computers. Any ideas of what I could do in a budget?

PS not sure if this is the right Thread to post this

Thanks!

[zlolslavez]

GD is fine for this. I think you could possibly do something involving a Raspberry Pi. I'm not sure what the requirements are to give you a more specific recommendation beyond that.

[YoFavRussian]

2 minutes ago, ForLocks said:

I'm in middle school and we have to do a project on our geeky interests  (it's called "Genius Hour"). My geeky interest is computers. Any ideas of what I could do in a budget? 

PS not sure if this is the right Thread to post this

Thanks!

Give us a budget? Maybe look into a project with a raspberry pi?

[minibois]

Any particular subject you were looking to cover? You could get some simple Dell machine from a thrift store and show that building a PC can be done by humans and it takes only a couple minutes (basically you go there with the case, motherboard, CPU, cooler, and power supply and build it and make it POST).

That could be cool, but only as a 'demonstration' type thing.

 

You could also do something on Folding@Home, more info on that here: 

 

It's basically using a computer to help advance medical research.

 

You could talk about electronics repair, or maybe even right to repair in general. Might be interesting if you are into that.

[ForLocks]

It has to have a question to propose this Thursday, a few weeks of research and development and be presented and the question has to be answered. At the presentation something has to have been day e.g. build model car

 

I also like space and physics and stuff

[Bananasplit_00]

These are hard imo, almost everything more advanced than "look i can click a thing on the desktop" is shouting into the void from my experience. Do something you would enjoy, something with an rPI could be cool if you like to fiddle with electronics or you could set up your own rPI webserver and put a basic website on it.

 

Kind of depends on how you are suposed to pressent it, your budget and what computer things you are more interested in really

[ForLocks]

I like building PCs, general knowledge about computer hardware and stuff like that

[ForLocks]

By budget I mean $50 or less

[Bananasplit_00]

15 minutes ago, ForLocks said:

I like building PCs, general knowledge about computer hardware and stuff like that

How about building a computer and having a presentation about the different parts? Maybe you have a spare PC? if not you could probably get something old for very cheap

[Firewrath9]

Rasberry Pi minecraft server or something like that, or host a CSGO server with ur PC

[YoFavRussian]

26 minutes ago, ForLocks said:

I like building PCs, general knowledge about computer hardware and stuff like that

I'm sure you could find some older hardware on a local website, craigslist or the Facebook marketplace. Or local thrift shops might have PCs that you could use.

11 minutes ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

How about building a computer and having a presentation about the different parts? Maybe you have a spare PC? if not you could probably get something old for very cheap

 

[Spotty]

3 hours ago, ForLocks said:

It has to have a question to propose this Thursday, a few weeks of research and development and be presented and the question has to be answered. At the presentation something has to have been day e.g. build model car

3 hours ago, ForLocks said:

By budget I mean $50 or less

You could look in to whether old PCs can be re-purposed or repaired as opposed to discarding them as waste.

Your presentation can be about you taking a PC that would have otherwise been discarded and you can work on it, diagnose its problems, and fix it. Discuss how the PC would have been thrown out as the owner thought it was broken and couldn't be fixed, or wasn't worth fixing. Explain what the problem with the PC was and the steps you took to fix it and get it working. Do some research in to eWaste and how much waste is generated by devices that could have been repaired or re-purposed instead of discarded.
The $50 budget could be what you have to spend on the system and replacement parts to fix the system.

As for finding old PCs to work on, try explaining your project to your schools IT department and ask if they have any old/broken PCs that you could have. Otherwise check local swap sites for old PCs or such. Maybe even try some eWaste recyclers if there are any in your area (places like FreeGeek which is in a few LTT scrapyard wars videos).

The bonus is if all goes well at the end of it you will have yourself a PC. If you don't need a PC and if you're lucky you might even be able to sell it for a profit.
If you can't fix it, then don't worry too much about it. Do your report the same way and still discuss the problems with throwing out broken things rather than repairing them and just be like "Well, unfortunately as I found out some things aren't cost-effective to repair". Your teachers won't care if it doesn't work, they'll only care that you put the effort in to your report. With science and doing experiments sometimes you get results you weren't expecting and all you can do is present your findings as they are.