A retired desktop computer, a screwdriver, and one rule: nothing gets named from a search until it has been named from evidence. Before the internet existed, people figured out machines by looking at them — what a part connects to, what its shape suggests, what earns its own fan. Today your group works the same way, unplugged in every sense.
The task
Open the case and account for everything inside. For each component, record three things before any looking-up is allowed: what you would call it, what you conjecture it does, and the evidence — its shape, its size, its heat sinks, and above all what it is connected to. Sketch a map of the connections as you go. Only when every part has a conjecture beside it does the group earn the right to check names.
Getting started (click to expand)
- Follow the wires. A part connected to everything is probably doing a job for everything.
- Fans and metal fins mean heat, and heat means hard work — what in this box would have to work that hard?
- Count the copies. Why would a machine carry two identical sticks of anything?
- Unplugged first, always: the power supply is a good place to end, not start.
What tends to surface
The conjecture map usually lands close to the truth, which is the real discovery: hardware is legible. The board that everything plugs into, the small chip under the biggest cooler, the sticks that come in pairs — when the names arrive in Hardware Inside the Box, they attach to parts your group has already reasoned about, and the names stick because the reasoning came first.
An extension
Ask of each component: what would this machine do if the part were gone? Rank the parts from “will not start” to “would barely notice” — then find one component whose whole job has since migrated into the single chip inside a phone.
Assessing components for user requirements
Once your group has mapped the physical parts, assess how component variations change the machine’s capabilities for different users:
- How would adding more RAM (from 8 GB to 32 GB) change what a student can run simultaneously without slowdown?
- Why does a digital video editor or 3D animator require a dedicated graphics card (GPU) and fast NVMe storage, while an office clerk needs only integrated graphics and cloud storage?
Connecting hardware specifications directly to user needs is the bridge to The Device Recommendation.
The answer is not on this page
No labelled diagram appears here — on purpose. The class assembles its own map first, and checks it against the world second.
Curriculum connection
B1.1
describe the functions and features of various core components of hardware associated with digital technologies they encounter in their everyday life
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B2.3
assess the hardware and software requirements for various users, contexts, and purposes in order to make recommendations for devices and programs
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