Building a child's PC with a child

iguana

My son plans on asking Santa for the parts to build his own computer. (And based on previous years, this is a done deal that he won't be changing his mind on.) I have no experience with computer building but have lots of time to educate myself. He wants to build something like this which would be incredibly expensive for the end result. I was thinking of getting a raspberry pi starter kit with a screen and adding a bluetooth keyboard and mouse. The Kano OS from the pre-bought kit is open source, so once put together that's what I currently plan on installing.

Does that sound like it would work and would the actual build be something a child could do with help. I want him to have the experience of building the computer rather than sitting by me and getting bored while I put it together. He could follow a youtube tutorial and I'll obviously help but the point if for him to experience the build himself.

Joeface

Doing something similar with my nephew at the moment , for his first build I have a Optiplex 745 which has had everything removed ( Everything taken out of the case an seperated )
just letting him put it together with a few upgrades I got to help with some preformance . The reason I chose this was well if he brakes anything it was a free PC and there are plenty of spares knocking around. But it should give him the full build experiance .

He can do the modern build if he wants later , just once he is comfortable doing this

Its just like lego with power applied afterwards

Digital Solitude

Is there any need of a PC in the house? If so you could get something low priced for him that would be powerful enough to be useful to yourself, would be a full PC build and give you the best experience of building a PC imo, but obviously will be quite expensive at €300-400

*Edit* He could still have Kano OS and Windows

satguy

Something like this could still be done today for €500 or so..
( this build is 3 years back, and was what the owner wanted )

Just change the RAM , Motherboard and CPU ,, maybe the PSU also

Windows 10 from Adverts , ( one of the good sellers with high green feedback )

iguana

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Is there any need of a PC in the house? If so you could get something low priced for him that would be powerful enough to be useful to yourself, would be a full PC build and give you the best experience of building a PC imo, but obviously will be quite expensive at €300-400

We've no need for anything expensive at the moment as my laptop meets all my needs. He's very young, will only be 6 in November, so I'm also happier to have an end product with limited functionality so I can limit what he has access to in a way that doesn't leave him feeling too constrained.

I'm also conscious of the fact that we're unlikely to actually be able to build it on Christmas morning. So it's just part of my Christmas budget.

K.O.Kiki

Raspberry Pi sounds good tbh; get him a tub of Lego & see if he can put 1+1 together

Gadgetman496

A 5-year-old should have no problem with a Raspberry Pi.

My 4 year old built his first rig recently, a high-end gaming rig, albeit he struggled a bit with the water cooling side of it and miscalculated some of the timings slightly at his first attempt at overclocking but got there in the end.


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