Ideas for High School Computer Club Activities? 90
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?"
How about... (Score:4, Funny)
Club activities (Score:5, Funny)
Only three holes? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Robotic RealDoll with AI (Score:1)
Personally, I'd prefer my partners speak without impediments of any kind.
Re:Robotic RealDoll with AI (Score:2)
Microwaved CDs!!! (Score:1)
Do what every other computer club does... (Score:1)
Any programmers in the group? (Score:4, Interesting)
LAN Games? (Score:2)
Also Chemistry Club is for blowing things up and making nitrogen cooled Bongs!
Maybe you could set up a blogging system for students? I also recommend that you re-design your website using one of any popular PHP/MySQL portal systems. May I suggest Geeklog [geeklog.net].
demos (Score:2, Informative)
Re:demos (Score:1)
And an evening of "watching a demo, having a beer" (as the old saying goes) beats many other
pastimes.
Subject line foggyness (Score:2)
Ideas for High School Computer Cult Activities?
Two Camps (Score:3, Interesting)
That's basically how it is at my school [stpaulsmobile.net] 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.
Re:Two Camps (Score:1)
So is fixing all those broken laptops after they've been used as beer can coasters, date-rape defensive wepons, jizz-sheilds, cocaine cutting surfaces, skateboard substitutes, etc. *sigh* I know what you mean.
Semper Ubi Sub Ubi "Always where under where." Dude, go commando whenever you can. Less Latin to worry about.
an idea (Score:2)
Just a suggestion.
Re:an idea (Score:2)
A better suggestion.
Re:an idea (Score:2)
Re:an idea (Score:1)
Don't encourage him to write another, no matter how short it is.
Project idea (Score:4, Funny)
Could make an interesting doctoral thesis for that rare Anthropology/Computer Science double-major out there.
Re:Project idea (Score:2)
Re:Project idea (Score:1)
So I guess you'll have to be using GNU/LINUX then! LOL
Re:Project idea (Score:2)
An interesting question. Maybe that would be a good project as well: Exploring how to manage money in the real world of computing.
I have a two word answer: Bake sale.
upgrade the site (Score:2, Funny)
mozilla bugs (Score:5, Interesting)
- 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.
My old computer club (Score:2, Interesting)
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 [legomindstorms.com] stuff and give the club members a competition or goal...When I was in school we built a machine and progr
Try combining efforts with other clubs! (Score:4, Insightful)
don't forget the newspaper / yearbook (Score:1)
If your school has a newspaper, consider showing them how to set up Linux file server or some story-typing / editing stations.
If they have an advertising crew, show them that Gnumeric and Open Office offer high-quality, free spreadsheets. (And if they're pretty simple, there should be no probs with converting to / from Excel format.)
Graphics: there are decent-enough vector graphics now (Carbon1
a couple ideas (Score:4, Insightful)
1) acquire a cheap webcam (i recommend the not-so-cheap route of firewire + an orange micro ibot) and use it to do something neat (this is what i do for a living
2) playing with neural networks (personally, i recommend implementing your own neural network package and then using it to solve some kind of problem --- maybe use it together with #1 to recognize things?)
3) robots (www.kipr.org has a boatload of info on this, as well as how to get starter kits)
4) ???
if you'd like help with #1 or #2, give me a yell and i'll do what i can to help (i have a linux toolkit that makes talking to firewire cameras a reasonably pleasant task)
Re:a couple ideas (Score:1)
Re:a couple ideas (Score:1)
Beowulf Cluster (Score:2)
Teach (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Teach (Score:2)
Make a webpage for them with tutorials to remind them of the lessons, sites to visit, and the email adresses of the school board, newspapers, city concil members etc. so they can write about the wonderful computer club that should get more funding
Re:Teach (Score:2)
Business model (Score:2)
2. Hire them out as cheap labor to fortune 500 companies.
3.
4. Profit!
The ONE thing you must do... (Score:2)
Model the school grounds in some popular first-person shooter. Extra points for accurately recreating textures. And if you're really socially challenged, custom player and enemy models are a nice touch.
Just don't mention it to anyone who seems idiotic and paranoid, they won't like the idea of schoolkids hunting each other through classrooms and firing a full rocket spread down the hall.
Re:The ONE thing you must do... (Score:2)
Of course, a diploma might still fire rockets...
High School Suicide Machine? (Score:1)
seriously.
Re:High School Suicide Machine? (Score:1, Troll)
Re:High School Suicide Machine? (Score:3, Funny)
It should also be illegal to create a game map based on any actual structure. Because high school kids are too stupid to recognize the difference between games and reality. And it's better for them to sit around doing nothing, alone, because their club dissolved after having nothing to do.
Any student caught looking too hard
take an example from blinkenlights (Score:2)
Model railroading (Score:2, Interesting)
Join the ACSL (Score:4, Interesting)
www.acsl.org
Blinkenlights! (Score:2)
Grab an open source project and hack away! (Score:2, Interesting)
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 t
Use games to generate interest (Score:2)
Another geekmaker is to have SOC chips control motors, or have network connectors. For instance some System On Chips have a x86 core and come with at least one ethernet interface. When bought in bulk theyre cheap and on proper boards, kids dont ne
custom school distro? (Score:3, Interesting)
- 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
Re:custom school distro? (Score:2)
Sell the CDs for a buck or two to students to fund it, or make the ISO available for them to burn at their own expense.
Lobby and fight for issues that matter to you (Score:1)
1. It keeps your senators and reps informed (there's strength in numbers) let's them know that you're a group that they speak for. They may even invite you to sit-in on hearings or attend sessions o
Lan Party (Score:2)
Teaches you Server management, Networking, Building things as a team and being social.
Some great ideas... (Score:1)
That, m
community cms (Score:2)
You could then use it for your own site. It's in php and can take subproject with different skill sets (somebody less programming oriented could easily develop custom themes which require not much more than html knowledge).
Have an old-computers day (Score:1, Interesting)
They'll be fascinated so long as they aren't 'cool tough'-CounterStrike-playing types
Setup a BBS (Score:1)
volunteer (Score:3, Interesting)
Projects (Score:1, Interesting)
I'm In The Club (Score:2, Funny)
Re:I'm In The Club (Score:1)
Re:I'm In The Club (Score:1)
Ummm, yes... (Score:3, Funny)
> Does anyone have any ideas for projects or activities which would be worthwhile?
Change the name of the club, hide the computers away, clean up the place, and invite some girls over.
Remember Weird Science... (Score:1)
All of the cool kids ... (Score:1)
duh (Score:2)
Here's a thought! (Score:1)
Why not organize a dance? Use project management and collaboration software to plan and assign tasks, MP3 software and lpd to play the music (which is all eleet dance/techno streaming off the Net, of course), PIC microcontrollers and lasers mounted on swervos for the light show, and spam to announce it? You could geek out AND meet c00l chicks, all at the same time! W00t!
MOO!!! (Score:1)
Talk To Girls Day (Score:1)
Here is some crap we did:
Some Ideas (Score:1)
1) Talks, lots of talks from outside people. Try your local ISPs, Sun, IBM etc. Not only will they talk about cool stuff but they might bring stuff to take away.
2) Security. Show the group how to setup a firewall then how to secure their desktop boxes.
3) Dual-head systems. Not everyone has two monitors, setup a dual-head system just for the fun of it.
4) Not everyone has broadband. Download a set
I am in a middle school right now. (Score:1)
Have you done this.... (Score:1)
Fun Project for the Grad class (Score:1)
They can do the video footage (few seconds of each grad saying hi), intro scenes into the school or on the grounds, a couple of small games, that can be played, some generic geek stuff (woo hoo) like multi-os platform stability (java based?)
ohhh, and you can sell the result to the grads. Way better than just a website (although you should put one up to market to the school), lots of content (use your imagination) and it can gene
Accessability (Score:2)