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Ask Slashdot: How Can I Make a Computer Science Club Interesting?
plutoclacks writes "I will run a computer science club at my high school next semester with two other friends. The club was newly introduced this school year, and initially saw a massive success (40+ members showed up at the first meeting). Unfortunately, participation has decreased a lot since then, down to four active members. I feel that the main reason for this decline was the inability to maintain the students' interest at the beginning of the year, as well as general disorganization, which we hope to change next semester. The leaders of the club all have fairly strong Java backgrounds, in addition to enthusiasm about computer science and programming. We have a computer lab with ~30 computers, which, though old, are still functional and available for use. What are some ways we can make the club have an impacting interest to newcomers?"
Installing FreeDOS and writing graphics programs in C that directly write to the VGA memory while controlling the sound "card" is an interesting first project. You learn a lot about the h/w, too. Then there's manipulating the FAT in assembly, banging bits out of the serial and parallel ports, etc, etc.
Yes, build a time machine so they can go back to 1990 when FAT and parallel ports were the 'in thing' . Offering them the chance to learn about the world of raw access to hardware registers is just the thing to get today's 'hip' teens away from drugs and Justin Beiber. What teen would want to spend their time after school 'hanging out' at the mall with their 'homies' when they can spend months learning how to tweak VGA and SoundBlaster registers in assembler so they can eventually plot a square or make the speaker beep?
If watching American teen movies has taught me anything, the computer club will become the envy of all their classmates and the cheerleaders will certainly agree to go to the prom with them. Cheerleaders dig x86 assembly experts who can talk for hours about the file allocation tables in obselete file systems.