Children crack open computers at Port Angeles Library teardown event

PORT ANGELES — In a wave of unbridled enthusiasm, four aging computers were reduced to component parts by a group of 20 children at the Port Angeles Public Library, all in the eagerness to see what’s inside.

A technology teardown event Saturday gave the youngsters an opportunity — and the permission — to deconstruct the machines of everyday use to see what was inside.

Armed with screwdrivers, needle-nose pliers and the curiosity of youth, teams of children turned the old computers into piles of parts, pieces and wiring harnesses — sacrificial lambs to the pursuit of knowledge.

Hard drives were cracked open, power supply units were laid bare and motherboards were broken down to resistors, capacitors and CPUs.

Nothing was sacred.

Jennifer Knight, youth services librarian for the North Olympic Library System, said ripping things apart was a potential pathway to knowledge.

“We do a lot of technology programs at the library and we want to support development at all ages,” she said. “We also want to provide people with skills for learning good things.

“We know that kids learn in different ways, so taking apart something like this is one big way that they can learn different things.”

Emily Bufford, youth services librarian for the Bainbridge Island library system, worked with Knight to develop Saturday’s teardown exercise. She said similar teardown programs across the United States inspired her to develop an activity within her own system and served as an inspiration to share the concept with other area libraries.

“By taking things apart, it’s a great learning opportunity,” Bufford said.

In many cases, youngsters are discouraged by their parents and caregivers from deconstructing home computers for fear of the inability to put an expensive piece of equipment back together, she said. Library-sponsored teardown events remove that fear and allow children to explore the innards of the everyday items of modern technology.

“First off, it really builds confidence with working with technology,” Bufford said. “A lot of times, kids are told ‘you’re not old enough to work with that.’

“Two, I think that looking at the internal workings of something like [computers] really inspires curiosity, hopefully setting them on the path of exploring information technology as a possible career.”

Bufford said many schools are developing teardown programs for children to experience the nuts and bolts of modern devices, but local libraries could add to the enrichment process.

Knight said the four computer servers destined for dissection were non-functioning cast-off machines from the library system’s network and were prime candidates for youth education.

Bob Allen, an information technology specialist for the library system, said there were close to 200 individual computers in the library network for public use and for internal resource cataloging, plus numerous printers and other device interfaces.

It was only natural to see the machines he helped oversee find a final value, even in machine death.

“I wanted to be a part of it because I know how these things are put together, ” Allen said.

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