Just found this in misc.kids.computer and thought it was interesting.

Newsgroups: misc.kids.computer,k12.ed.tech
From: lmagid@shell.portal.com (Larry - Magid)
Subject: Clinton commends first elementary school kids to build PC
Keywords: clinton school kids pc
Sender: news@unix.portal.com
Nntp-Posting-Host: jobe
Organization: Portal Communications Company
Date: Mon, 7 Jun 1993 18:42:15 GMT
Lines: 222

On June 3, 4 and 5th, children from Orion Elementary
School in Redwood City, California (USA) made
history by being the first elementary school kids to
build their own computer. The assembled a 486 multi-
media PC.  Here are the stories from the kids
themselves followed by a letter to the children from
President Clinton.

Today's Events by Jennifer Guillena
Sixth Grade Student -- Orion School
Thursday, June 3, 1993

President Bill Clinton wrote a letter of
encouragement to Orion School.  Orion school is
the first school in the United States to build a 
computer .  First the students and parent
volunteers talked about the most mportant circuit 
on the mother board called central processing unit
(the main brains). The mother board was put in the
case by Benjamin Krasnow and Adam Howard.  At
first they tried to put the mother board in the case
When the case was upside down, but they soon
figured it out.  The power supply was put in by
Christopher Croco, Brian Nehring and Amanda
Prado.  Christopher Croco and Brian Nehing had to
find where the  power supply went and put it in
place.  Amanda Prado screwed it in place.

Next they attached the power switch to case, and
that was done by  Clint Desouza and Cheri Landa.

We've had some visitors.  San Jose Mercury News
reporter Lori Aratani, Barabara Carman from Intel,
Stacy Clarke from Intel, a photographer from the
Mercury News and a photographer from the New
York Times were all here to observe our great
event.

*** 
Letter from the President

by Susy Chavez from Orion Elementary School

  President Bill Clinton wrote a letter of 
encouragement to the students of Orion
Elementary school for their great intrest in building
a computer.  Orion is the first elementary school to
build a computer.  The type of computer we are
building is a 486 Mutimedia PC.

On the first day, which was Wednesday June 2nd,
from 1:00 to  2:00 pm students from grades 2-3
helped put the computer together. They 
contributed by unpacking the equipment and
putting together the breadboarding of the
computer. 

Thursday June 3rd from 10:00-12:00 noon 
students from the grades 4-6 went to work.  
These students mounted the components into the
computer. For example, we attached the power
switch,the hard drive, the floppy drive, the mother
board and much much more.   On the last day,
Friday June 4, students from K-1 will plug in
peripherals.   Windows and application software
will be installed and tested

***

(not sure who wrote this)

Right now the kids and parents of ORION are
puting in a mother board for the new computer
that ORION is building. It looks to me like they're
having a lot of fun! The people are building it in
room 4, a small computer Glab. They screwed in
the mother board. They are putting in the power
supply. They are trying to find out where it is. At
the moment they were Llooking for a place to put
the main power supply. They will install it with
screws. They are now attaching wires.

CHERI and CLINT are putting in a switch. This is
an example of how the students are building the
computer with just a little help from the adults

***

"How can Orion school afford to build a
computer."
by Mike Butterfield
   
Most of the software was donated by Aymetrix,
Broberbund, Central,  Davidson, Microsoft, The
Learning Company, Maxis, Shapeware, and others.

The hardware was donated by Intel, Segate,
Micronics, Canon, Microsoft,  Packard Bell, and
Acer America. Prodigy donated a modem and
subscription to its online service.  Orion School
only purchased $300 dollars worth of
miscellaneous items, such as extra memory.

*** 
Not Sure Who Wrote This

The first thing they did was poot the mother board
into the case. At first it didn't go in but eventually
they got it in. It took 10 minutes.

Forget putting the mother board into the case. It
costs the same amoutn to buy the pieaces
assembled or the pieces disassembled.  

Then after ptting the mother board into the case,
they had to poot the in power strip. First they
didn't exactly figure out where it went. They
could't figure out why some of the stuff was  
there. Then Amanda Prodo was screwing in the
power supply. Then thye poot in the thing that
terns the computer on and off. Finally they poot
the power suppy in. They attached the power 
swich onto th case.

The power supply too. It took 9 minutes.

Then they took out the mother board so they hage
room to stick their hands in the case and because
it would be easyer to work with. Liz Butterfied is
sitting quietly holding the microfone. They swich is
in now ther hooking up the power swich.

The finished hooking up the power swich.

Now they are hookig in the hard drive. Thr pooting
in a small 200 hard drive. Jennifer Galina is
figuring out wher to poot the hard drive. The
screws of the hard drive are now going in.  They
finished pooting in the hard drive and are now
pooting in the floppy drive. They are now screwing
in the floppy drive (it is quite difficult). There just
about finished. Amy just connected the monitor.

There is a problem. They forgot a step. Now they
are going to fix it.

***
By Amanda Sorenson and Rebecca

We think it's neat that a little elementary school
like ours is buillding our owne computer.

Acording to some of the adults, that are helping  
us, this is the first elementary school to build their
owne computer. Our computer is running now and
we insauling programs

***
Letter to Bill Clinton from the School 

We are sending a message to you from the new 
computer we build at school. 

We hope you have continuing success in office.

From, 
Orion Kids (Room 7)

We made  a computer on Frida, the fourth of June.
The older kids had already worked a lto on putting
the parts of the computer together. On eof the first
things we did was put the top on th cmputer. It was
tricky because we had the computer upside down at
first. Than we put the screws in so it would stay, and
then we kooked the keyboard to the computer. The
next thing we did was attache the speakers to the
comptuer. After we hooked the speaker up, we
passed the mouse pad around to look at  It had a 
picture of the inside of a mouse on it. Then we
attached the mouse to the computer. Finally, we
plugged the electricity into the computer and turned it
on!

It worked!

We pressed "2" to enter Kid Pix, Ben Shleffar and
Shawna McCormkick were the first kids to use the
computer. They played Kid Pix. We all worked really
hard on it to finish it up.

Cena Olson and the Orion Rangers -- The 1st and
2nd grade class



************************
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON

May 12, 1993

Students of Orion School
c/o Ms. Betty Aten
Principal
3150 Granger Way
Redwood City, California 94061

Dear Students:

As you build your own computer, you are obtaining
valuable experience for yourselves and performing a
wonderful service for your school. Mastering 
computers is essential for success in the fast-paced
global economy. I commend you for your interest in
technology, and I urge you to continue your work with
these kinds of innovative and challenging projects.

Best wishes in your efforts.

Sincerely,

Bill Clinton

2 responses total.

This response has been erased.

Yes, its really cool that they would get to do this, but I somehow doubt that
they would have any way of confirming that they were the first school to do
that.  They were probably the first school that their teachers had heard about
that put together a computer, but I wouldn't be surprized if there were a 
school somewhere else that had also done that.  While I may not have been
putting computers together at that age, I was putting together other electronic
things that I now know, from putting computers together, are no more
complicated than putting a computer together.

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