Ask Slashdot: Hands-On Activity For IT Career Fair

First time accepted submitter MConnolly writes "I participate in an annual career fair for High School Sophomores. I have groups of 10 — 20 students for 40 minutes a piece. In previous years, we've brought a bunch of retired PCs and challenged the groups to disassemble (down to the motherboard) and reassemble them in working order. Many processors and motherboards died, but everyone had fun. Most students today only have laptops and tablets. As a result, this knowledge doesn't translate into the real world anymore (perhaps you disagree). I'm looking for suggestions for an activity that will give the students some hands-on, real world experience that will benefit them immediately."

Comments

Maybe something with networking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Get an old wireless router, reset to factory defaults, have them connect to it via laptop and configure it for secure wireless, which they can then connect to with their laptop/tablet.

Re:Write some HUMAN code

[Overzeetop]

You've got teams, right? Make it a pictionary type of game with each team broken into halves. One half of the team is given a task to complete (build a tower out of wooden blocks, move a pile of color balls into color-coded piles, sort numbered cards, etc) and must write simple code (perhaps limit their operations to a fixed list) that the other half of the team must execute in programming order to complete. Take turns writing and executing, with points for success.