Four people need a computer. Each of you gets one of them, the same budget, and twenty minutes. Then you defend your choice to somebody who picked differently.
The four people
Your client is one of these
Amara edits video for the school’s morning announcements. Long exports, big files, works in the studio and never moves the machine.
Devon takes the bus, writes essays, keeps twenty tabs open, and is on video calls for a part-time job. Charges once a day if lucky.
Ms. Whitfield runs the front office: three programs at once, a label printer, two monitors, and files that must never be lost.
Rowan is starting this course next year, plus a photography class, on a budget that has to cover both a machine and a camera.
What to do
- List what they do — five to eight specific activities, in their words as you imagine them.
- Turn each activity into a component. Which part does it lean on? Some activities lean on two; say which one gives out first.
- Rank the components. Where does the money go first, second, third? Write the order down before you look at anything for sale.
- Spend the budget. Write out the specifications you would buy — processor, memory, storage, graphics, display — plus one peripheral, in correct terminology.
- Name the trade-off. What did your client not get, and on which day will they notice?
The defence
Pair with somebody who had a different client. Two minutes each: present the specifications, then defend one decision they challenge. A good challenge sounds like “you spent on graphics — what activity of theirs actually needs it?”
The strongest answers in this exploration are rarely the biggest numbers. They are the ones where the person doing the talking clearly knows which activity would break first.
Afterwards
Reading a Spec Sheet is where the vocabulary gets pinned down, and The Spec Sheet asks you to do this for somebody real, with an interview instead of an imagined client.
Curriculum connection
C1.2
relate computer specifications (e.g., processor type, bus speed, storage capacity, amount of memory) to user requirements, using correct terminology;
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C1.3
relate the specifications of common computer peripheral devices (e.g., printer, monitor, scanner, keyboard, mouse, speakers, USB flash drive) to user requirements;
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B1.2
demonstrate the ability to solve problems independently and as part of a team;
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