Break a Computer, Fix the World

Carol, a Smith alum, had a big problem. She was sitting on a trove of old photos of her student days. Her plan was to donate them to the Smith College special collections. But her computer, Dell’s 2008 Optoplex 960, had been sitting in the attic for many years and no longer worked.

Ready to take on the challenge of Carol and her broken computer were 10 Smith students, all gathered in small groups at worktables in the Design Thinking Initiative (DTI) space.

Carol, of course, didn’t exist. But the dusty Dells did. Four of them sat on tables ready to be opened and explored. This was the computer repair workshop, a free Friday evening offering designed to help students overcome the fear of playing around with—and hopefully fixing—broken technology.

Helping to lead the effort was Jordan Crouser ’08, associate professor of computer science.

“I’m going to claim that in the next 90 minutes, we are going to take these broken computers—and all of you who have never really dug into the guts of computers before—and we’re going to get them working. Sound good?”

The students looked hopeful, if potentially a little skeptical of this claim. Most had been to a previous Design Thinking workshop. Only one had ever looked inside a computer before.

“If your computers broke, how many of you would feel comfortable fixing it yourselves?” Crouser asked. He looked around the room. No hands appeared. “Zero,” he concluded, “Including the guy who has a degree in computer science.”

Since he also found hardware repair to be daunting, Crouser had brought along his friend and longtime tinkerer Ryan Matte to fill in the gaps.

“I’ve been ripping computers apart my entire life,” Matte told the students, “Starting with me trying to fix things because I broke them. Sometimes I fixed them, but I invariably would find out how they would work and go together.”

Tinkering success! Photo by Sherry Li '25

The idea for this unlikely workshop on computer repair, officially known as the “Tech Tinker Tea,” had grown out of (and been piloted in) a new, introductory DTI course with a goal of “designing towards what justice might look and feel like.” In that vein, Crouser asked students in the Friday session to consider existing systems of power. He pointed to how computer hardware was difficult to repair, with warranties that voided the minute you tried, and where only a certain type of person, usually white and male, was authorized to make any fixes.

“There’s a moment and a place at Smith for us to think about, well, how do we disrupt that?” he noted. “How do we break down our own anxieties about playing with hardware?”

With encouragement by Crouser and Matte, students began by plugging in the Dells (had Carol actually tried that?) and listening for any sounds of power. One flickered. One stayed on. Two didn’t work at all.

Almost all the students agreed that the hands-on aspect had been what drew them to the workshop. An English major wanted to get over her fear of computer repair. A data science major wanted to move beyond coding. A physics major missed the tinkering she used to do at home, before college.

“I just want to move from the theory to the practical, get my hands in the guts,” said engineering major Phaidra Martin ’24. Was the workshop living up to those expectations? “Absolutely.”

Crouser began wheeling around a monitor so students could test the status of their computers. Milla Wenick ’25, Al Torrens-Martin ’25 and Erin Corcoran ’25 turned theirs on and were surprised to see a jellyfish wallpaper appear. They clicked through a few folders until they found black and white photos of Smith students in long skirts in a science class,  at protests, and skating on the pond.

“It was very satisfying,” said Wenick of this successful conclusion to the mission. “Especially as somebody who’s bad at computers, it’s nice to see your efforts come to fruition,” agreed Torrens-Martin.

Martin also found the workshop to be a success.

“This has convinced me to buy things off the internet and replace it myself,” Martin said. She thought for a minute, then, “I also kind of want to build my own PC.”

Photo by Sherry Li '25