At a glance
Solo · launched in Unit 1 and due six classes later · four working periods, one real person, one budget, one recommendation you can defend
What you are making
A one-page recommendation for a real person you know who needs a computer — a family member, a coach, a neighbour, someone in a club. Not a hypothetical. The person has a budget and a set of things they actually do, and your job is to turn those things into specifications and then into one machine you would stake your name on.
What must be in it
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Who they are, in their words. Three or four sentences from an actual conversation: what they do with a computer now, what annoys them about it, and what they wish it could do. If they say “it’s slow”, ask when — starting up, opening files, or with fifteen tabs open. The three answers point at three different parts.
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The budget, stated plainly, and where it came from.
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A requirements table: each thing they do, and the component it leans on.
What they do Component it leans on What that means concretely Fifteen tabs and a video call Memory 16 GB, not 8 Photos from a good camera Storage, then screen 1 TB SSD; colour-accurate display -
The machine you recommend, with its actual specifications written out in correct terminology — processor, memory, storage type and size, graphics, display, battery, ports.
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Two peripherals that matter for this person, with the numbers that made you choose them.
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What you gave up. Every budget forces a trade. Name it, and name who would have noticed. A recommendation with no trade-off in it is a recommendation nobody thought hard about.
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One sentence on where the machine goes at the end of its life, from Where to Take It, and Who to Ask.
How to work
- Interview first, specify second. The interview technique from Interviewing Your Client applies exactly.
- Turn each need into a component before you look at a single product — otherwise the product decides your requirements for you.
- Use Reading a Spec Sheet to translate, and Inside the Machine when you need to explain why a part is the one that matters.
- Write it for the person, not for me. If they cannot follow it, it has failed at its only job.
How this is assessed
| Quality | What it looks like |
|---|---|
| Grounded in a person | Real needs, in their words, not a product review |
| Correct terminology | Memory, storage, processor used precisely |
| Requirements drive specs | Every number traces back to something they do |
| Peripherals justified | Chosen on numbers, not on brand |
| Honest about trade-offs | Says what was given up, and who would notice |
| Readable by the client | Plain language; no unexplained jargon |
Reflect
A Code Journal entry: which of their answers changed your recommendation most, and what would you have got wrong if you had skipped the interview and gone straight to the specifications?
Curriculum connection
C1.1
relate the specifications of the internal components of a computer (e.g., CPU, RAM, ROM, cache, hard drive, motherboard, power supply, video card, sound card) to user requirements;
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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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C1.4
identify the computer components involved in executing programming operations (e.g., assignment statements store a value in RAM, arithmetic operations are performed in the CPU).
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C3.5
explain the difference between the functions of applications, programming languages, and operating systems.
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