Aiden Stine’s Senior Project started with his passion for technology. He made a plan and then began his work to build his own computer.

For Aiden, technology has always been intriguing. He said, “I always have been obsessed with technology ever since getting my first gateway laptop as a five-year-old.”
After getting his first laptop, he spent lots of time investigating the inner mechanics of the laptop.
“Growing up, I was always the kid who would help a teacher with tech errors and was just overall fascinated by what makes the screen glow,” Aiden said.
As Aiden was choosing what his Senior Project would be, he looked toward his passion of technology. “I decided that this would be an appropriate project for me to undertake because I plan on majoring in Computer Science, and I personally think building a computer should be something I have under my belt prior to doing so,” Aiden said.
This was what then drove the rest of his project. Once he knew what he wanted his project to be about, he then set some goals for what he wanted his final product to look like.
“My main goal with this project was to build a functioning computer and, hopefully, make a tutorial for STEAM students to use down the line,” Aiden said.
While keeping this goal in mind, he began working to start planning out the building of his computer.
Aiden said, “The steps were making a parts list for my budget, sourcing said parts, and then putting the computer together.”
Although these are just three steps, that does not mean they were simple during the process of this build. “All three of these steps honestly felt like a project in of themselves,” Aiden said.
Aiden was able to describe the struggles he encountered during the build, including that each aspect required lots of work and money. The pandemic had been one factor that caused for some struggle during his building process, but that has yet to stop him.
“The progress has been great, but due to COVID-19 and the severe backup the USPS has had recently, some parts were delayed by months to come in. Some I could only buy at an extreme markup.”
Things like the extreme markups on some parts caused for struggle as Aiden worked to stay within his original budget of $2,000 for this project. Even the time was restricted as he had to wait for different parts to be shipped to help move progress along.
Aiden described the biggest lesson he has taken away has been learning how to budget. He discussed the different sacrifices he made to ensure that he could stay within his budget, but he also said, “The performance is of my utmost importance.” These were just a few challenges Aiden faced while learning to persevere.
By keeping his end goal in mind, Aiden is “proud to say that computer has been built.”
This project was one that ended with plenty of good lessons learned.
“It was also nice to finally build a computer hands on. I have watched many videos on how to build a computer and have done minor repairs in my past, but I have never actually had the opportunity to take each component fresh out of the box and start from scratch,” Aiden said.