PC Design Lab teaching notes

About these lessons

Three lessons of about forty-five minutes each, for ages ten to fourteen, with a fourth for students who are ready to read code. Students design a computer for looks, to a brief someone else wrote. Then they write the program its lights run, as sentences with the numbers in place. Then they show it, in a room with the lights down, and the class says whether it did what its designer meant. Each lesson has one idea, ends with something the student made and can explain, and only asks for what the lesson before it taught.

PC Design Lab is a design lab, not a computer builder. Nothing in it has to boot, and there are no prices, wattages, temperatures or brand names. If your class needs to learn what the parts do and how they fit together, that is PC Workshop, and it is a good lesson to run first. These lessons do not need it.

How to read this guide

1. Say what to tell the class, in a sentence or two. Use your own words if you like.
2. Students do the steps, in order. Read them out or put them on the board.
3. On their screens what you should see when you walk round. If a screen does not look like this, that student needs you.
4. If it goes wrong what usually goes wrong at this step, and what to say.
5. Ask the question that tells you whether it landed. Let them show you on the screen.

• Every student needs PC Design Lab open in a browser, with a mouse or a trackpad. It runs on a Chromebook. Nothing is installed. The machine is 3D and the rooms are lit, so a very old computer may be slow; it still works.
• The benches are the tabs across the top: Type, Shape, Inside, Lights, Cooling, Program, Room, Marks, Paint and Export. The buttons over the machine turn the view and hold Power, Sound and the room's light.
• Work is kept as the student goes when they are signed in. Without an account, nothing is saved; that is fine for a single lesson, but lessons 2 and 3 build on lesson 1's machine.
• Sound is off until a student presses Sound off to turn it on. In a room of thirty, leave it off, or allow headphones.
• Try lesson 1 yourself first. It takes fifteen minutes, and the choices you hesitate over are the ones your students will.

The lessons

Before the first lesson

• Open PC Design Lab yourself. It starts on a tower called My tower, on a desk at night, with its power on: the fans turn, a rainbow runs along two strips on its edges, and the readout under the stage says how big it is and how many fans, lights and rules it has.
• Press Program. You should see Start from with six presets (Rainbow, Breathe, Chase, Ocean, Ember, Still), then Rules with three buttons, Sentences, Blocks and Code, and three rules written as sentences. That is lesson 2.
• Press Room. You should see nine rooms and Day or Night. That is lesson 3.
• Write the brief for lesson 1 on the board. A good brief names a place and a person: "A machine for the esports stage at a school tournament. The audience sits at the back of the gym. It has to be readable from there, and it has to look like it belongs to our school." Use your school's colors if you like.
• Decide now whether your class will sign in. Signed in, each student keeps their machine between lessons, and lesson 3 shows the machine made in lessons 1 and 2.

Lesson 1: Design to a brief

One idea: a design is a set of choices made for someone who will see it, and a good one can say why each choice was made. By the end every student has a machine and one sentence that ties a choice on it to the brief.

Lesson 1: Play first (0 to 8)

1. Say This is PC Design Lab. You design a computer for how it looks. Nothing has to work inside it, so there are no wrong parts. Take five minutes: turn it, try the other kinds on the Type bench, and press Power off and Power on.
2. Students do Drag the machine to turn it. Press the views over it, Front, Side, Three quarters. On the Type bench, pick two or three kinds. Press Power off, then Power on.
3. On their screens Ten kinds on the Type bench, each with a small picture: Tower, Open frame, Cyberdeck, Retro box, Handheld, Wall piece, Arcade cabinet, Desk PC, Fish tank, Rack blade. A sentence under them says what the picked kind is. With the power off the lights go dark and the fans slow to a stop; with it on they spin up and the lights come back.
4. If it goes wrong The machine slid off to one side: a student held Space or dragged with two fingers. Any view button puts it back in the middle.
5. Ask Which kind would you never put on a stage, and why? Any answer with a reason is a good one; you are listening for the reason.

Lesson 1: Read the brief (8 to 15)

1. Say Here is the brief. Read it, then write down two things it asks for. A brief is what a client wants; the designer's job is to give them that, not only what the designer likes.
2. Students do Read the brief on the board. On paper, write two things it asks for, for example: readable from the back of a gym, and our school's colors.
3. On their screens Nothing new yet. Walk round and read the papers. Readable from the back is about size, contrast and light; looks like ours is about color and marks.
4. If it goes wrong A student writes what they want instead of what the brief asks, "a cool rainbow". Ask: does the brief say rainbow? What does it say?
5. Ask What would make a machine hard to read from the back of a gym? Wanted: something small, something dark against a dark room, lots of thin detail that blurs at a distance.

Lesson 1: Design it (15 to 37)

1. Say Pick a kind for the brief. Then work through four benches: Shape for how big it is and which sides are glass, Inside for what shows through the glass, Paint for its colors, and Marks for a name or a logo on it. Twenty minutes.
2. Students do On Type, pick a kind. On Shape, move the sliders, and choose what each side is: solid, glass, mesh, vents or open. On Inside, choose the card, the memory, the shroud and the cables. On Paint, pick one of the looks at the top, then tap one part and change its color. On Marks, put a word or a shape on a panel.
3. On their screens The machine changes as they go. On Inside, chips under The card, Memory, Shroud and Cables (cables can be Hidden, Neat, in combs, or Loose). On Paint, six looks across the top: Stealth, Snow, Lounge, Candy, Night market and Lab, each setting every color, the finish and the light color in one tap.
4. If it goes wrong The Inside bench says to make the side Glass or Open first: the student's side is solid, so nothing inside can be seen. Send them to Shape. A Cyberdeck or a Handheld says it keeps its parts in a sealed slab: those kinds have nothing to dress inside, which is fine.
5. Ask Point at one thing you chose, and tell me which part of the brief it answers. Wanted: a choice and a reason, for example the side is glass so the lit card reads from far away.

Lesson 1: Show and ask (37 to 45)

1. Say Name your machine in the box at the top, next to the tabs. Then turn to a partner, show them the machine from Three quarters, and tell them one choice and why.
2. Students do Type a name in the box at the top. Press Three quarters. Show a partner and say one choice and its reason. The partner says whether they could read it from the back of the room.
3. On their screens Their machine with its own name. If they put the name as a mark, it shows on the machine too.
4. If it goes wrong A student is not signed in and wants to keep it. Without an account it is not saved: use Export, A picture, so they have something to show next time, or start from a fresh tower in lesson 2.
5. Ask What did you change because of the brief that you would not have changed on your own? That is the difference between designing and decorating.

Lesson 2: Lights as a program

One idea: a program is a list of events, and each event runs its steps in order. By the end every student has changed a program by its numbers, added a rule that waits for something to happen, and can read their program aloud.

Lesson 2: Read it aloud (0 to 10)

1. Say The lights are not decoration you paint on. They are a program. Press Program, then press Rainbow under Start from, so we all have the same one. Read the first rule out loud to your partner.
2. Students do Press Program. Under Start from, press Rainbow. Read the three rules, top to bottom, out loud.
3. On their screens Three rules as sentences. Always, run a rainbow along the strips every 6s, then run a rainbow along the fans every 6s, then shift everything by 10deg every 0.2s. When power comes on, sweep the strips white over 1.2s. When someone taps the machine, flash the logo white for 0.6s. The words and numbers in blue can be tapped.
4. If it goes wrong The rules changed before anyone read them: a student pressed another preset. Press Rainbow again; it puts the three rules back.
5. Ask Each rule starts with when something happens. What are the three whens? Wanted: always, when power comes on, when someone taps the machine. Those are events.

Lesson 2: Make each event happen (10 to 20)

1. Say An event waits for something. Let us make each one happen. Press Power off, then Power on, and watch the strips. Then tap the machine once and watch the logo.
2. Students do Press Power off, then Power on over the machine, and watch. Then tap once on the machine itself, not on a button.
3. On their screens On power on, a white sweep runs along the strips, then the rainbow takes over. On a tap, the logo flashes white for a moment.
4. If it goes wrong Nothing flashes on a tap: the student dragged instead of tapping, which turns the machine. A tap is a press and a release in the same spot. A tap on the machine's own power button turns it off: that is the button, not a tap.
5. Ask Which rule ran once, and which one keeps running? Wanted: when power comes on runs once, at the moment it happens; always keeps going the whole time.

Lesson 2: Change the blue words (20 to 32)

1. Say Every blue word is a value you can change: a color, a time, a place on the machine. Change three of them so the lights fit your brief from lesson 1. Then add a rule: press + When the room goes dark, and give it one step.
2. Students do Tap a blue word, pick a new value, and watch. Change three. Then, under the rules, press + When the room goes dark and add a step to it, for example + breathe or + set a color. Press Room dark over the machine to test it, and Room lit to put the lights back.
3. On their screens Each change shows on the machine as soon as it is made. A fourth rule starting When the room goes dark. Under each rule, buttons that add a step: set a color, dim, paint a gradient, fade, wait, sweep, flash, shift the hue, rainbow, breathe, blink, chase.
4. If it goes wrong A student cannot find which part of the machine "the strips" or "the fans" means. Tap the blue word: the list names every zone of light the machine has. Zones a kind does not have do nothing on it.
5. Ask Read me your new rule. When does it run, and what does it do? Wanted: the event, then the steps in the order they are written.

Lesson 2: The fastest blink (32 to 40)

1. Say Try to make something blink as fast as you can. Add a blink step to any rule and make its time as small as it will go.
2. Students do Add + blink to a rule. Tap its every time and try to make it smaller than 0.34 seconds.
3. On their screens The blink will not go faster than once every 0.34 seconds. The note above the rules says why: a blink can never be faster than three a second.
4. If it goes wrong A student is upset it will not go faster. That is the lesson. Do not look for a way around it; there is none, in sentences, blocks or code.
5. Ask Why would a designer stop you here? Wanted: fast flashing light can cause seizures in some people, so the rules for the web say no more than three flashes a second. A real designer works inside rules like that one.

Lesson 2: Ask (40 to 45)

1. Say Read your whole program to your partner, from the top. They tell you what the machine will do when it is turned on in a dark room.
2. Students do Read the program aloud. The partner predicts, then presses Power off, Power on and Room dark to check.
3. On their screens The program running on the machine as the partner predicted, or not.
4. If it goes wrong The prediction was wrong. Good: ask which rule they misread, and why.
5. Ask What is the difference between always and when power comes on? A student who can answer that knows what an event is.

Lesson 3: The show

One idea: a design is judged where it will be seen. By the end every machine has been shown in its room with the lights down, and every student has heard what a viewer saw.

Lesson 3: Put it in its room (0 to 12)

1. Say Open your machine from last time. Press Room and pick the room your brief is about. Look at it by Day and by Night. Fix one thing that is lost in the room.
2. Students do Press Room. Pick a room: Desk, LAN table, Esports stage, Shop window, Retro basement, Server aisle, Ship bridge or Museum. Press Day, then Night. Go back to any bench and change one thing that does not read in that room.
3. On their screens The machine in the room. At night the room's own lights go out and the machine lights the room. The Esports stage has screens and colored beams behind the machine; the Museum is quiet and plain.
4. If it goes wrong Void has no Day or Night: it is an empty stage with no room. Pick a room.
5. Ask What did you change once you saw it in the room? Wanted: something that worked on the plain stage and got lost in the room, for example a dark machine on a dark stage.

Lesson 3: The power-on moment (12 to 22)

1. Say When your machine is turned on in front of the class, the first two seconds are what people remember. Make the rule When power comes on into a moment: more than one step, in an order you chose.
2. Students do On Program, find the rule When power comes on. Add one or two steps to it, for example a wait, then a flash of the logo. Test with Power off and Power on.
3. On their screens Steps in the power-on rule run one after another: a sweep, a short wait and a flash happen as three beats, not all at once.
4. If it goes wrong Everything happens at the same time. Look at which steps they used: a fade, wait, sweep or flash holds the next step back until it is done, but set a color, dim and paint a gradient happen at once. A wait between two steps separates them.
5. Ask Read me the power-on rule. What happens first, second and third? A student who can answer that is reading a sequence.

Lesson 3: The show (22 to 40)

1. Say Each of you shows your machine. Put it in its room at night, turn the power off, read the brief out loud, then press Power on. The class says one thing that answered the brief, and one thing they could not read.
2. Students do In turn, on a shared screen or by walking the room: room at night, Power off, read the brief, Power on, then tap the machine once. Listen to the two comments.
3. On their screens Each machine's power-on moment, then its program running in its room.
4. If it goes wrong Comments drift to likes and dislikes. Bring them back to the brief: could you read it from the back, does it look like it belongs to the school.
5. Ask After the show: what would you change now that you have seen it from the back of the room?

Lesson 3: Take it with you (40 to 45)

1. Say Press Export. Make the design sheet: four sides of the machine on one page with its name and its size. That is what a designer hands a client.
2. Students do Press Export, then A design sheet. Save it, or print it.
3. On their screens A page with the machine from four sides, its name and its size.
4. If it goes wrong A student wants the 3D model. Export also makes a .glb that glows as a prop in SceneMaker and the platform's other 3D apps, and an .stl for a 3D printer. Signed in, these go to the student's Files.
5. Ask If a client only saw the design sheet, what would they miss? Wanted: the lights and the program; a sheet shows the shape, not what it does.

Lesson 4: In code (optional)

One idea: sentences, blocks and code are three ways to write down the same decision. By the end a student has changed a light program as code, built a machine by commands, and read an error message to fix a broken line. It suits students who have used blocks, or are about to meet text code.

Lesson 4: The same program three ways (0 to 15)

1. Say Press Program, then Rainbow. Now press Blocks, and then Code. It is the same program each time. Find the rule When power comes on in all three.
2. Students do Press Sentences, Blocks and Code in turn. In each one, find the power-on rule.
3. On their screens In Code, the program as text: always { with three lines inside, then when power comes on { and the line sweep strips #ffffff over 1.2 s, then when someone taps it { and flash logo #ffffff for 0.6 s. In Blocks, the same rules as Glassbox blocks over the stage.
4. If it goes wrong The blocks do not appear: a message says the blocks editor did not start here. The sentences and the text still work; go on with those.
5. Ask In the code, what do the braces { and } mark? Wanted: where an event's steps start and end. Everything between them runs when that event happens.

Lesson 4: Change one line (15 to 25)

1. Say In Code, change the power-on line so the sweep is your school's color and takes 3 seconds. Then press Sentences and read what you wrote.
2. Students do In the box under Code, change sweep strips #ffffff over 1.2 s to a color and 3 s, for example sweep strips #0055ff over 3 s. Click outside the box. Press Sentences.
3. On their screens The sentence now reads sweep the strips in their color over 3s. Pressing Power off and Power on shows the slower sweep.
4. If it goes wrong Under the box the lab says Not understood: line 2 (or whichever line), and the rest runs. Usually a missing s after the number, or a color without its #.
5. Ask You changed text, and the sentence changed too. Which one is the real program? Wanted: they are the same program; the lab keeps one and shows it three ways.

Lesson 4: Build a machine by commands (25 to 45)

1. Say There is a second kind of code here: code that builds the machine. Scroll down the Program bench to The machine as code. Press This machine as code to see the lines that would build yours. Then write your own: an arcade cabinet in the Candy look, and press Run it.
2. Students do Press This machine as code and read the lines. Then clear the box and type pc.kind('arcade') on one line and pc.look('candy') on the next. Press Run it. Then add a line with a mistake on purpose, pc.colr('shell', '#ff0000'), and press Run it again.
3. On their screens After the first run: 2 commands ran, and the machine is a candy-colored arcade cabinet. After the broken line: Line 3: no command called pc.colr, and nothing on the machine changed. The list of commands under the box shows the right spelling, pc.paint(part, color).
4. If it goes wrong A student typed curly quotes or forgot a bracket. The line number in the message says where to look. The machine never half-changes: if one line fails, none of it runs.
5. Ask Why does the lab run none of the lines when only one is wrong? Wanted: so the machine is never left half-built; it is the same idea as a program that refuses to start with an error in it.

Where to go next

• PC Workshop is the other computer app: real kinds of parts, a budget, assembly by hand, and a power button that boots it or beeps. Run it before or after these lessons, and ask students what one machine had to do that the other did not.
• Hat Lab, Pumpkin Lab and Burger Lab share the bench with PC Design Lab: the same Paint, Marks and Export benches, on a hat, a pumpkin or a burger.
• SceneMaker opens the .glb from the Export bench, so a machine can glow on a desk in a scene a student builds around it.

More help

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