Students Build Their Class Computers

Local tech firm partners with Chatsworth charter school to teach kids how to assemble computers.

 When Our Community School needed new computers for its computer lab, it did not take the easy way out by simply buying the computers and having professionals set them up. Instead, they partnered with a local technology company to teach students how to assemble and set up the computers.

Engineers from MSM Technology Group, a Chatsworth-based computer manufacturer and support company, supervised the charter school’s film elective class Tuesday as they seated heat sinks and CPUs, wired USBs and misplaced a screw or two.

Mitchell Marcus, president of MSM Technology, explained his company’s arrangement with the school.

“The school bought the computers,” he said. “We’re donating our labor.”

Marcus and two engineers from his company encouraged and coached the students as they assembled 15 new computers. He had older students help the younger students.

Sarah Martin, math and science teacher, and instructor of the film elective class, said a lot of the students had no experience building computers.

“Lots of these kids want to be actors or directors,” she said.

The class will ultimately use the computers to edit video projects, she added.

“They have done book animation,” she said. “They will produce music videos. They will learn storyboarding.”

Martin’s class did not go into the lesson without preparation. Tuesday’s hands-on class took place in the third week of a four-week process, taught by Marcus and his crew.

Students learned the basics of computer memory in the first week, a lesson that Marcus referred to several times as he coaxed some of the students to remember crucial pieces of information when they ran into a problem while working on their computers.

Students studied computer parts and started to put the computers together in the second week’s lesson.

Tuesday’s lesson, assembly, was entirely hands-on. Although the work they were doing required dexterity and precision, the atmosphere in the classroom was light. There was a lot of laughter. Marcus and his crew went from station to station to troubleshoot as students ran into problems.

Many students told Chatsworth Patch that although the work wasn’t easy, it wasn’t too difficult, either.

“It’s somewhere in the middle,” said Kayro Marin, as he looked for a screw that he dropped inside the computer case. “It’s pretty fun.”

Danny Olmos and Naseem Shamburger worked together to install a hard drive. Naseem said although assembling a computer was harder than he thought it would be, he was enjoying it.

Sydney Sneed and Zac Gamble worked together on a computer.

“It’s really fun,” Zac said as he screwed down the motherboard.

Sydney concurred. “It’s hard, but cool,” she said.

Shiraj Bhinderwala, a technician with MSM Technology, spent the class period going from station to station to help keep the class moving.

“They’re doing great,” said.

Olav Lestrange, manager of technical services for MSM Technology, said not all the students approach their tasks in the same way.

“Some kids are ahead,” he said. “Some don’t want to touch the computer at first. They’re afraid they’ll break it.”

However, he echoed the most common sentiment of the day.

“This is fun,” he said. “They get to tinker with things.”

Zac, who assembled a computer for the first time Tuesday, said the lesson was valuable.

“If I get into a mechanical job, I’ll have experience. I’ll be able to help people,” he said.

Next week, students are to finish assembling the computers and learn about the software they will use to run them.