Helping Kids understand what's inside Computers and Technology

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Helping Kids understand what's inside Computers and Technology

COMPUTER DEMOLITION -- PARPORT SOFTWARE -- BITS&BYTES -- ALARMCLOCK2000 --

We would like to announce the availability of new / updated materials for
use by schools, educators and hobbyists in learning about computers and
electronics:

We keep wondering:

"Will American kids be Inventors in 10 years, or just operate
appliances designed elsewhere?"

     and, by the way,

"Whatever happened to the Kid who took Alarm Clocks apart to
discover how they worked?"

Technology can make it seem unapproachable to understand how things work,
when the inside of an alarm clock consists of a microchip epoxied to an LCD
display.  But It's NOT TRUE!  Computers are the BEST Alarm Clocks to take
apart!

We want to do something about the decline in the number of kids who
actually MAKE things, by helping to develop young peoples inclination to
TAKE THINGS APART and understand how they work.  We want you to help, and
we want to help you with materials you can use in a classroom or workshop.

We have been doing workshops, classes and classroom demonstrations for
several years, especially doing 'Computer Demolition' in which we have kids
(or older people..)  take XT type computers totally apart, learn about the
parts and how they connect, rebuild the machines up from an empty case and
debug them.  We also have been teaching "Bits&Bytes" which is a
beginners level look at computers and electronics, using old PC's and
PARPORT software that we developed for educational purposes.  Many
hobbyists have used PARPORT for starting out in Robotics and Computer
Interfacing.  We have helped many IBM technical people go out into
classrooms to do Computer Demolition.  We are making some of the materials
we have developed available to anyone who is interested.

Oh..  'WE' are:  Terry King and Mary Alice Osborne, AKA "Mountain
ClockWorks", who produce Educational Materials and Custom Clock Designs
from our log cabin ...In The Woods In Topsham Vermont.  Someday we may
write a book on these subjects and make some money.  Maybe.  We would also
like to market some kits of parts to make it easy to do hands-on workshops.

What we have available:

  - The Computer Demolition Handbook: (Online .PDF , 28 pages and growing)

  - PARPORT.ZIP : Easy-to-use Parallel Port interfacing and programming

  - Bits&Bytes  : Materials to teach / learn about beginning
                  computers and digital electronics

  - AlarmClock2000 : How to reuse parts from old PC's and printers to make
                     things and learn about electronics.

These materials are in various stages.  Computer Demolition is the most
complete, with a real how-to booklet.  PARPORT (SEEBITS, BITMACH etc.)  is
very useable freeware, but still needs a good Cookbook!  BitsNBytes has
some good ideas but needs a lot of added information.  AlarmClock2000 is
just basic materials, but Mary Alice is working on good drawings of the
parts of a 5 1/4" disk drive, and how-to reuse them, and I'm working on the
info about reusing old IBM Graphics Printers as winches and cranes.  With
some encouragement and Winter coming on, we hope to get much more of this
finished and out there.  Right after we finish getting our firewood in and
stacked...

HOW TO GET THIS STUFF (and more information): On the WWW at

http://homepages.together.net/~tking


Here is some more perspective on what these materials are:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
COMPUTER DEMOLITION is an activity in which students totally disassemble a
working IBM XT type computer down to an empty chassis.  We have done this
with Kindergardeners and Senior Citizens, but Middle School seems ideal.
They learn what the parts do, and how they relate to each other.  They then
connect the parts together to make an 'absolute minimum' working computer
(on the tabletop with no case).  After debugging this tabletop machine,
they then "build an IBM XT" back in the original case and configuration and
get it all working again.  All this is usually done in a 80 to 90 minute
period.  (After the Demolition, some 5th graders have built a perfectly
working XT in 9 minutes!).  We now have a free online Booklet describing
how to do Computer Demolition with kids in your area.  We also provide
workshops for students, teachers and businesses in the New England area.

------------------------------------------------------------
PARPORT:  Freeware for use of the PC parallel port for input and output.

SEEBITS:  DOS Fullscreen Control and Monitoring of Parallel Port Bits
          with large 'Bits' that can be seen across a classroom.

SeeBits uses a "Printer Port" (often called a "Parallel Port").
The port is "unscrambled" so that you have one 8-bit output port and
one 8-bit input port using adjacent pins of the printer port.

NAMEBITS and BITMACH:  State Machine programming environment that needs
                       no Compiler to write programs that run from
                       bits on the Parallel Port. Examples included.

------------------------------------------------------------
BITS&BYTES:
    "How can we learn about those Bits & Bytes we hear computers run on ??"

Bits&Bytes is designed as a hands-on activity for Elementary school and
older people in which they explore and learn about "Those Bits that
everyone knows are inside computers".  Although Bits&Bytes is intended
to be a classroom unit that takes place over 8 to 12 sessions, the material
has also been used to develop an introductory one session presentation
suitable for use in National Engineers Week and other outreach activities.
Bits&Bytes asks questions like these:

        o What are bits LIKE?
        o What do they DO?
        o How do bits get IN to the computer, and where do they come OUT?
        o How can we get bits to come OUT of the computer where we
          can see them and play with them?
        o How many kinds of bits ARE there?

..and then answers them with demonstrations and hands-on activities.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
ALARMCLOCK2000:

"OK, but we want to MAKE Some Stuff!
How can we learn about that, and get some parts ??"

THE IDEA: HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF OLD IBM TYPE PC's and
PRINTERS ARE BEING DISCARDED BY BUSINESS & INDUSTRY OVER THE
NEXT COUPLE OF YEARS:

   o This 'Old Iron' equipment can have great educational value IF information
     about how to utilize it is made available.

   o There is a unique opportunity to allow kids and teachers to take
     these devices apart and learn about technology.

   o Technical Professionals and Professional Educators need to work
     together to capitalize on this opportunity.


-----------------------------------------------------------------
We MAY have some preliminary drawings available hardcopy, which are not yet
in the published information, IF you are about to actually start a class.
Get in touch.

Comments and suggestions are welcome. E-mail: tking@together.net
Follow-Ups: