Computers

This page is your source for information about the Computer Systems project, including forms, examples, and virtual machines. The Computer Systems project is wide and varied allowing youth to explore many elements of computer systems from artificial intelligence (AI) and programming to virtual machines (VMs). Youth are encouraged to explore areas of interest to them allowing for a creative and fun experience.

The only thing to be aware of with this project is the focus on the software aspect of things… everything submitted to the Kansas State Fair is software based for this project. You don’t submit the actual computer (physical hardware is part of the Energy Management project) you submit the software that runs on a computer such as a game, virtual machine, or website.

State Fair Forms (2023)

**** Posters, Display Boards, & Notebooks, No additional exhibit information is required; no manila envelope is needed for these exhibits.  All other exhibits need the additional information included in a manila envelope. All other exhibits need the additional information included in a manila envelope. Displays, notebooks and posters have been combined into one score sheet for all divisions.

Documents in PDF format can be opened using a PDF viewer such as Adobe Acrobat Reader which can be obtained from:  https://get.adobe.com/reader/

If using the Firefox web browser, PDF’s may not have fallible fields present, please either save the file or open in a different browser.

Helpful Information

  • Example Instructions (Word) (PDF)
  • Example Engineers Notebook (Word) (PDF)
  • VMware Player FREE for Windows and Linux (Required for the virtual machines below) (External Link)
  • Video How to play the Virtual Machines (VMs) (External Link to Youtube Video)
  • Scratch – Helps young people learn to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively, developed by the MIT Media Lab
  • NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute – Classes around Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Deep Learning (DL). NOTE: Some classes are free and some have associated costs.
    • This is an advanced topic on cutting edge technology and is not intended for beginners as it requires a moderate to advanced understanding of programming skills.
    • It is recommended to start with Image Classification with Digits (Free) under the “Electives” section
  • RaspberryPi.org – Information about the inexpensive computers
  • Blender Tutorials – Blender is the free and open source 3D creation suite. It supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline—modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking, even video editing and game creation.

Virtual Machines

Below are some example virtual machines you can use for projects. The files below are large zip files containing the files needed to deploy the Virtual Machine. They may take some time to download depending on your internet speed and the load on the server.

Username: spacetech Password: Kansas15
Usernames and passwords are case sensitive.

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