We Taught Our Kids How to Build Their Own Computers and They Loved It!
Our kids have always loved getting to help my husband take apart his computer and put it back together. They love helping him clean it, replace parts, and ask a million questions in the process. Late last year when they started begging for their own computers my husband was excited to take this as an opportunity to teach them how to build their own computers. This was not my area of expertise so my involvement was minimal but I did watch and learn a lot from what they did together.
The Benefits
Our children had to earn each and every part of the new computer. We didn’t just buy everything one day and let them set it up on the same day. They spent months doing extra chores, saving money, and learning the value of a dollar.
They had the opportunity to learn about each part, why it was important, and how it helped the computer function.
They have a better understanding and appreciation for their device. They take care of it with pride because they know firsthand how much money and time went into building it.
The Process
When we first decided to start this project we knew it would be a few months’ worths of work to get them all of the parts they needed so we came up with different tasks and what we were willing to put towards their computer fund if they completed each task. Because they were eager to build them they would request parts as birthday presents or save birthday money for a computer part. We started them off with the case that would be the home to all of the computer parts and then we went from there…
Building
Once they earned the parts, they were eager to start building. They did install most parts as they got them but towards the end they let the parts build up so they could finish installing them all at once. The processor and the hard drive were the last few parts they installed before putting Windows on the computer so they could get to important business….Minecraft.
The Parts
I am linking them here for convenience but I also suggest looking around between websites and physical stores to get the best prices. We used Newegg, Amazon, and Micro Center as our main sources for parts.
Windows
Computer Chair - this is the one my son has on his wishlist but for now, he’s using one from my husband’s office since they aren’t using them anymore ;)
The Final Price
I asked my husband how much we ended up spending and he said “more than we anticipated” haha! Not surprised. But for real it was around $1000 per computer over the course of six months or so, so it didn’t feel like a huge hit all at once.
My husband wrote up a little bit more about the process because like I said, I wasn’t heavily involved in this part :)
The Process According to Riley -
The first step I’ll skip over is researching and acquiring the parts. The prices can vary enough to warrant research between amazon and other competitors. Purchasing them at Micro Center always means paying more but you get the satisfaction of getting the item immediately. We did a mix of Amazon purchases and Micro Center purchases.
Next, you will want to get the motherboard installed. It is the base for every other component you’ll install. Hence the name. This item takes up a good portion of the space in the case as well, as everything else plugs into it in some capacity.
From there the process can vary but we started with the power supply, one of the physically larger pieces to install. It is essentially a black box with a ton of wires coming out of it to supply power to the remaining components.
We installed the processor next. The most expensive and for this build the most important piece. I handle this myself to ensure it went on correctly without messing with the thermal paste that keeps it cool.
Moving on it was a lot of relatively quick install pieces, the hard drive, wifi adapter, RAM.
The final step was to correctly hook up all the cabling to ensure that all units have power and everything is connected in all the right spots. This is not an overly hard task but does take focus. The cabling for most of these components is essentially a jumble of wires and some super tiny labels to find and connect to.
That’s basically it. Once it is up and running you need to install windows or other comparable operating systems and then you’re good to go.
