Reflection+Product

My project consisted of two parts: planning a gaming event for charity and building a computer. Initially, I was going to plan the ExtraLife Gaming Tournament with two other friends of mine from the other class. When we had everything ready, a mix-up on the administration’s end caused the event to fail and we had to cancel it. We found that working with the administration was more difficult than we expected, and the other two decided they would bring their event to an outside location while I decided to change my topic.

Building a computer for me was easier than it may have been for most people because I was able to have my father as my mentor. This allowed for a more flexible schedule for working on the computer, which was important, and an easier time to go shopping for parts. One goal that I set for the computer was to make the best computer possible for the lowest price. The reason I wanted to do this is because I wanted to compare it to other preassembled computers to show the difference in their price. Often, building a computer can result in a savings of hundreds to thousands of dollars. To do this, we created a chart of possible parts and their prices. Selecting the best part was difficult because each piece had features that others did not. I had to decide what would be important to me, and how much these features were worth to me.

When we finished buying the parts, we made sure that we had a chart listing all their prices, features, and retailers. This synthesized all of the important information that would have been scattered on different websites and boxes. This chart is something that I will probably include in my PowerPoint during the presentation.

Building and loading the computer was especially interesting. I learned where each of the different parts fit in together, and what the parts looked like outside of the box. Before we put each part into the computer, we took pictures of them which I will also put on the PowerPoint.

Some of the most important information that I learned about building a computer was about the different parts. I learned about the importance and method of buying compatible parts for a computer. When we were buying the parts, the first part we bought was the processor because most of the parts that are compatible with a processor are compatible with each other. Although the computer case had predetermined spaces for each of the parts, I doubt I would have known prior to this project where to put each of the many cables.

The ability to build a computer is an increasingly important skill because of the relevance of computers for the future. I often see people ask my dad for help building their computers because buying a computer is much more expensive than actually building a computer. I hope that this will become a money saving project in the future, and will make me more adept at handling computers.