Looking for hands-on, IT-related demo for middle schoolers.

March 13, 2009 2:33 PM

What kind of hands on activity would be good for a group of middle-schoolers interested in a career in IT?

A colleague and I have about 20 minutes of time with 8 groups of middle schoolers at a local career fair. 10 minutes is devoted to Q&A and should also include a hands-on type activity.

We should have internet access via 3G wireless card. We're pretty geeky in terms of doing tech (hardware, development, etc.), but we would like something that doesn't require more than 2-3 hours of prep time.

Any suggestions?

posted by buck09 to Technology (6 answers total)

Swapping/adding hardware is simple, easy and valuable. Many people freak out about it, but it really only requires someone who knows what they're doing to be there and point out the right stuff and that they aren't going to break things just by touching them.
posted by rhizome at 2:43 PM on March 13, 2009

Are these middle schoolers who know how to program, or ones that are just (like I was at that age) kind of "Computers! Yay!"

If they don't know how to program, showing them how to do something kind of whiz-bang with code could, you know, totally blow their minds. It would have blown mine.

Is programming something IT people do on a regular basis? I'm a little unsure.
posted by ocherdraco at 2:48 PM on March 13, 2009

You could teach them Hello World in a variety of languages.
posted by nitsuj at 2:50 PM on March 13, 2009

Best answer: If "IT" includes networking, how about a "simulation game" which simulates a simple Ethernet LAN or IP WAN? Get them thinking about "where does data come from?"
posted by ZenMasterThis at 2:50 PM on March 13, 2009

Best answer: If this is going to be a demonstration sort of thing, I don't think programming is going to hold their interest. IMO "Hello World" is too simple to be informative and anything more complex runs the risk of being intimidating and/or boring to those not explicitly interested in programming.

I second ZenMasterThis's recommendation of an ethernet routing simulation of some sort; several students can act as nodes, others act as routers and one or two can act as servers. Use shoeboxes as packets/frames/whatever. Ask what their favorite website is (probably myspace) and make it a presentation on "what exactly happens when you visit {website}."

Have the nodes write a message on a piece of paper, put it in a shoebox and show them how it gets routed to the students playing the server roles. Demonstrate three-way handshakes, QoS (some messages are more important than others) and what happens when nodes/lines go down. Stick in load balancing if you have extra time. Should easily take up 20 minutes.
posted by Ziggy Zaga at 3:07 PM on March 13, 2009 [1 favorite]

Disassembling a PC? You could bring in some old PCs (if you're geeky enough, you should have at least one old one lying around), and have the kids disassemble one step-by-step; this is faster than assembling one, and should fit into your time budget. During disassembly, you can talk about what each part does. Provided more time, you could also have them re-build it.
posted by Simon Barclay at 7:51 PM on March 13, 2009