How Do Computers Work??

Computers have different parts inside that make them work, like the motherboard, hard drive, chips, floppy drive, modem, expansion card, monitor, cd-rom, fan, tower, power supply, colorful wires, keyboard, mouse, memory, CPU.

In one exercise, we used this web site to find out what some of the parts in the computer do: http://members.aol.com/wbox/wbox.htm. Then, we took a computer apart. In doing this, we learned:

•I learned different parts of the computer and how they work - Kiwi
•You need a screwdrive to take it apart - Geneeka
•I learned what they pieces looked like and how they worked - Kiwi
•A motherboard has chips on it - Sarah
•You need the air to get the dust out of the computer, and it can get in your eyes - Geneeka

• The game works on the computer - Sarah
• You click with the mouse and the agents move. You try to not get hit by snowballs - Kiwi
• Snowballs turn everyone else into snowballs - Sammy
IF you get hit by the snowball, THEN you turn into snow - Geneeka
• I liked when you get hit by a snowball, then they go hit other people and turn them to snow - Shaquille

Another exercise we did to learn how computers work was to make our own game. We used software called AgentSheets to do the programming.

AgentSheets helps you learn computer programming without knowing anything about it before you start. The main thing it uses are IF-THEN statements. We learned what IF-THEN statements are by our coach calling out IF-THEN conditions like “If you are wearing blue, then take one step forward.” After Jeff gave some examples, team members got to practice forming IF-THEN statements.

After we learned what IF-THEN statements were, we came up with the idea for the game we wanted to make.

• Unscrewing the screws, because we got to take it apart - Shaquille
• I liked spraying the air because it was fun plus it was cold when holding it. When you use it more and more it gets colder - Geneeka
• I liked the big pieces - Sammy