When I was in 6th grade, my math teacher, Mr. Fred Matt, handed us stacks of paper and showed us how to build a “paper computer.” It wasn’t fast, and it definitely wasn’t digital, but it worked. More importantly, it helped me—and has continued to help me throughout my career—finally see how computers really operate, step by step.

In this hands-on workshop, you’ll build your own paper computer from scratch. Together we’ll run a few programs so you can see how the pieces fit together, and then you’ll design your own programs to test your paper machine. No coding or prior knowledge required—just curiosity and a sense of fun. By the end, you’ll not only have a working paper computer to take home, but also a whole new way of understanding how the devices around us actually think—an understanding that can stick with you for life.