Alex Wilson stood before nearly 60 4-H members and advisors recounting the difficulties he had encountered the first time he built a computer from components. He urged them not to let the inevitable glitches frustrate them, to be patient and to keep working through any problems. Sounding like a veteran, Wilson had assembled his first computer just a year earlier. At age 14, he is the author of the curriculum used by his Snohomish County 4-H Byte-by-Byte computer club to teach 4-H members from six other counties how to assemble computers for their own clubs.
Wilson and other Byte-by-Byte members were sharing their "war stories" while waiting for operating software to slowly load onto a room full of computers assembled by the 4-H members during the four-day workshop.
Dubbed "4-H Today's Teens Teaching Technology," or 4-H-T4 for short, the program was one of the first under the Washington state 4-H Computer Technology Initiative funded by Washington State University's first-ever grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation administered by WSU's Center to Bridge the Digital Divide. The Microsoft Foundations also donated free software for the new community 4-H computer labs.
"It's really rewarding to teach and watch kids build computers for the first time," said Emy Lewis, 14, the leader of the Byte-by-Byte club.
Besides providing machines for developing or expanding their own clubs' computing laboratories, the visiting club members also brought home another "gift:" the ability to teach what they had learned to fellow 4-H members back home. The kids attending the workshop produced 24 computers for their computer labs, and returned home with computer components to teach the skill to their fellow club members. The result will be a total of 58 new computers for the six computer labs.
According to cooperative extension educator Doreen Hauser-Lindstrom, who coordinated the workshop, each working computer was assembled for a total cost of less than $450.