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Ideas for High School Computer Club Activities?
angryLNX asks: "This year, my high school's computer club started running out of project ideas and fun things to do as a club. Over the years, we have done the website, the Linux box and the TV announcement system. Does anyone have any ideas for projects or activities which would be worthwhile? Any good or bad experiences with certain high school computer clubs? Since we're in Connecticut, maybe it would be fun to attend a certain conference in New York?"
If so, you might want to consider having them put together a simple game. The important thing is not to be overly ambitious (puzzle games or simple 2d shooters fit this well). The non-programmers can work on art, design, and music.
the Computer Club currently seems to be split into two groups. One group mostly plays multiplayer games such as Tribes, while the other group embarks on lessons on how to use our server, as well as basic tutorials in programming languages we use such as PHP.
That's basically how it is at my school as well. Our computer club is mainly kids who play video games, but thanks to our great technology department we know have something made for the other type. We call it St. Paul's Technical Services, St. Paul's being the school and technical services being what we offer. The school has a laptop program, and with a few hundred machines being on campus problems arise. Mainly we trouble-shoot Windows programs and the like, but from time to time we deal with hardware too. This (2002-2003) year was our first, so it was all kind of "unplanned". But next year is looking much better.
Carpe meam simiam!
Why don't you take a look at one of the Mozilla bugs with large community interest (http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16399 3 /.) and try to fix them. Some of the are enhancement requests and they would maky a nice Mozilla Firebird or Mozilla Thunderbird extension.
- sorry I am not linking because bugzilla refuses direct links from
For example, some people even pledged money to fix the controversial http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=62429 (option to put signature above the quoted text in mailnews). The devs refuse to fix it so it's perfect for an extension.
Back in the day, we had a computer and robotics club. We met after school and built interface boards so we could control a set of stepper motors using either an apple IIe, an old mac quadra, or a commodore 64.
So these old boxes aren't around anymore, but the element of controlling robots with computer programs is essential experience for the high school computer geek. Check out the Lego Mindstorms stuff and give the club members a competition or goal...When I was in school we built a machine and programmed a computer that could open a Master lock without knowing the combination! (no, we didn't iterate through all possible combinations, either)
Those who can, do. Those who can't, simulate.
One or two tables, one to three trains per table, one computer per table controlling the trains and switches, and a bunch of machines for developing the code. It'll give the keeners a leg up on the university-level real-time course, perhaps some insight into concurrency, and demonstrate the destructive potential of bugs. No, I didn't go to MIT. But I am grateful for the influence of their Tech Model Railroad Club.
The Seventh Rule: Take others more seriously than yourself, particularly when you are leading them.
Have your school sign up with the American Computer Science League (ACSL). Very fun and competitive.
www.acsl.org
Games? Why not download the source to Quake2 and play with the code? The other fun part comes in compiling and playing your version. Making mods for it is was also suggested, why not have two groups? One in charge of the game and the other of the mod?
Programming? If you're not interested in programming games, then look through the source of another program that might be of interest.
Now if programming isn't what you're looking for... then maybe helping your school migrate to OpenOffice? Get rid of the Office lincense will reduce the cost to the school, so it might be worth it. Then plan 2 would be to migrate them to Linux! With both these projects it will require you to provide some training and support. (Both good resume keywords for when you eventually reach the job market.) Maybe take a look at the LTSP and see if you're be interested in that.
There are SOOO many things to do, it's just a matter of finding something that you and the rest of the CC is interested in. It looked like you'd already worked on a few good ones.
Good luck!
-P
People like things to be customized and personalized. A cool project I'd like to see is a distro-creation kit for schools that might include a distro like Knoppix customized with:
- splash screens with school logo
- school colors as appropriate
- directory (if your school permits such, make sure all students with listed numbers are fully aware of their inclusion in advance)
- likewise, yearbook pictures or just some fun snapshots
- first-person-shooter with layout of your school. (But no weapons! Just call it a 3D tour, ok?)
- Mozilla / other browsers with useful-to-students links
- a lot of educational software
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Many teenagers have never seen a computer made before the Win95 age, and know even less about computers back then. Have an old-computers day, where people can bring in their old Atari STs, Amigas, Win3.1 486s, BBCs, AppleIIs, C64s, BBCs, Dos games, Archimedes, Classic Macs, Risc PCs, Spectrums, etc.
They'll be fascinated so long as they aren't 'cool tough'-CounterStrike-playing types
Why not volunteer to help out the IT staff & school district, as mentioned in this other /. story?