The Great Connecticut Kit-Building Experiment

For New Haven teacher Chris Baldwin and 28 kids who enrolled in his 10-week ZX81 workshop, it was a resounding success.

It used to be thought, and still is in some school systems, that programming instruction and hands-on computer time belong in the high schools. It is now finding its way into the grade schools, more often as a result of student and parent pressures than of the vision of school boards. I’ve seen typical nine and ten-year-olds program in BASIC, and six and seven-year-olds in Logo. Kids with this learning opportunity have a tremendous, perhaps decisive, advantage — but only a few have this opportunity! Until schools recognize their responsibility and provide every child with daily access to a computer, this sad waste will continue.

That’s a strong statement, but the more I work with children and computers, the more I see what the experience can mean to a child’s self-image. I know a child has made an important breakthrough in how she sees herself and her world when she stops asking ‘How do I do X?’ and begins saying, ‘I wonder if this will do X?’ She returns to a natural approach of playfulness and discovery about her world in a school setting in which many pressures work to dull that approach.

One point I continue to make to policy-makers (with limited success to date) is to ask them to carefully consider which expenditure of $2,200 best serves a school’s needs: one Apple II with a monitor, printer and disk drive, or eight T/S 1OOOs, televisions, cassette recorders, printers and 16K memories? Through my work with kids and computers, I became convinced of the importance of giving all children free access to computers.

In the spring of 1982, I placed an ad in the school newspaper offering to help kids build ZX81 kits. Parents were to pay $150 for a kit, all supplies, and my time: a reasonable charge as the complete ZX81 alone was then selling for that price. I expected half a dozen replies: within four days I had 28, mostly from 10 and 11-year-old boys. In this age group it is hard to attract girls to what they already see as a male realm.

There was no screening of kids for this workshop. They represented a valid cross-section of abilities and experience in kitbuilding and computers. The common thread was excitement and interest about computers. Most did not know how to solder; most did not know what soldering was. Could youngsters master this delicate art?

As the starting date approached, my wife’s worries that I had bitten off more than I (or the kids) could chew raised doubts in my mind — doubts about working with so large a group on a project requiring patience, certain fine motor skills, and care in following directions. When I saw a review in a popular computing magazine that asserted that building the ZX81 kit was a project to be undertaken only by adults, my concern grew.

By the third two-hour session, all our doubts had vanished. The children worked with an intensity and excitement I have rarely seen in my years of teaching. Sure they made mistakes along the way, but all were caught and corrected. No problem was unsolvable. An incomplete kit necessitated a letter to Sinclair; a few lost pieces necessitated several trips to Radio Shack; a few solder burns necessitated we keep first-aid supplies handy, I threw my back out and conducted several sessions flat atop a table.

I anticipated the children would finish in six or seven sessions and spend the rest of the time using their computers; week by week, anticipation and worry grew over whether the computers would work.

They were completed between the eighth and tenth sessions. When we plugged them in for the first time, more than half worked right away; after faults were discovered and repaired (the most common were shorts in the sockets and under the keyboard connectors) most of the others also became functional. Only one had multiple problems, including a cold solder, which took longer to track down. In the months since, there has been only one failure we have not been able to correct ourselves.

You see stories in the local press headed, “Whiz kid builds own computer,” but it somehow seems too frequent an occurrence to justify calling anyone a whiz. I believe that just about any 10-year-old could do it if given the opportunity and minimal guidance.

Last September, I started the New Haven Sinclair Study Group to provide continuing stimulation for kids using Sinclair computers. We meet on alternate Tuesday nights through the school year. Half of each meeting is given to a discussion demonstration or lesson, and the other half to sharing work, comparing problems and exchanging ideas.

I like to tell kids that the Sinclair case is black only to those who will not look at it; to anyone who uses the computer, the case is really transparent and Clive Sinclair meant for everyone to see inside it and understand it and put it to work in new and better ways. I hope the kits become available again and that the T/S2000 finds a place in our schools. That way; we can live up to Clive Sinclair’s philosophy of bringing computer power to all the people. Computers are very powerful tools, and we need to see ourselves in a position of mastery, not intimidation.

We asked the members of the New Haven Sinclair Study Group to tell us about the ZX81 and their experiences building it. Some of their comments:

• “I can remember the first day of the computer club how scared I was. It seems silly to think of it now but I was really scared, I thought I would get burned or something. It looked so confusing I mean when I opened the box the parts were kept in for the first time all I saw were tons of little odds and ends. These odds and ends are now my ZX81.” – Avery Grauer, age 11
• “I can barely remember trying my first solder. I was so nervous 1 could barely hold the soldering iron. After I had completed my first solder, I thought, well, I’ve only got 299 solders to go! And believe me those 299 solders were not easy!” – Kent Zimmermann, age 11
• “I kept messing up by filling holes with solder and putting diodes in the wrong holes. After I finished, it did not work, but with some adjusting it worked fine.” – Jennifer House, age 11
• “It was fun building it.” – Andy Cohen, age 9
• “It is so small, light-weight and compact it’s hard to believe it is a computer.” – Wyeth Friday, age 11
• “The ZX81 is a very good first computer. There are a lot of things you can do with just 1K that you wouldn’t dream of doing when you first get it home.” – Michael Slavinsky, age 11.

The New Haven Sinclair Study Group held an essay contest for which entrants were required to write a statement of 81 words or less “explaining why you think the Sinclair is super.” Eleven-year-old Matthew Quinlan won a copy of the 1K game “Break Out” for the following:

The ZX81 is compact and easy to use,
It can do anything but tie your shoe.
Small and easy to lose,
No zapping to give you the blues.

Takes you on paths yet unexplored,
You can play it at home and not get bored,
You don’t even need and 80-column board.

Plan your diet and not get fat,
Like learning Basic is really hip,
I mean gag me with a microchip!

Really awesome, Matt! Like wow!