OpenRA
Real-time strategy
Rebuilt versions of the classic Command & Conquer and Red Alert games. Build a base, gather resources, send an army at whoever is on the next bench.
openra.net ↗CYBERSURVIVOR
Take a desktop PC to pieces. Put it back together. Make it boot. Wire them into a working network. Then prove it works by playing a LAN game across it.
⚠ Read this before you touch any hardware
- Power off and unplug the PC from the wall before opening the case.
- Touch the bare metal frame first to discharge static electricity.
- Never force a component. If it does not seat easily, check the orientation.
- No food, drinks or magnets anywhere near the hardware.
- Unsure about anything? Stop and ask your teacher.
Your details
Set yourself up
Your PC number decides your IP address for the whole unit, so get it right before you start.
This sets the static IP address you will configure in Lesson 3.
No PC selected yet.
How this works
Three lessons of work, one to finish and play
| Lesson | Focus | You walk out with |
|---|---|---|
| 01 Hardware | Strip the PC down and identify every part | 7 component photos and your own descriptions |
| 02 Build | Rebuild it, check the firmware, install Windows 10 | A PC that boots to a fresh desktop |
| 03 Network + Games | Up to six PCs, one switch, static IPs, then a LAN game | A working LAN and a live game session |
| 04 Finish + Play | Catch up on theory, then the tournament | A completed booklet and bragging rights |
⚠ Before you touch a screwdriver in Lesson 1
You need a bootable Windows 10 USB drive ready for Lesson 2, and building one takes a while. How long depends on the internet speed, how quick your laptop is, and how slow the USB drive is, so it can run anywhere from fifteen minutes to over an hour.
Start it on your laptop first thing in Lesson 1 and let it run in the background while you dismantle the desktop. The Bootable USB tab has the steps.
⚑ Your booklet is this page
Everything you type, tick, photograph and answer is collected under My Booklet. When you are finished, export it as a single file and submit that. Two rules keep your work safe:
- Download your progress file at the end of every lesson. Anything saved only in this browser may disappear - if that occurs, you can upload your saved file from the previous lesson.
- Load it back in at the start of the next lesson to pick up exactly where you stopped.
Acknowledgement of Country
We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the lands on which we learn and work, and pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have been this continent's first scientists and engineers for more than 65,000 years.
Across this unit you will meet First Nations Australians building the technology industry right now.
Preparation · start this during Lesson 1
BOOTABLE
USB
Build the drive that installs Windows 10. This is the Operating Systems USB you will boot from in Lesson 2.
⚠ Start it early and leave it running
The tool downloads several gigabytes and then writes them to the drive. Depending on the internet speed, your laptop and the USB drive itself, that can take anywhere from fifteen minutes to over an hour. Kick it off on your laptop at the start of Lesson 1 and let it work while you dismantle the desktop. Do not sit and watch it.
⚑ The drive gets erased
Everything currently on the USB drive is deleted, with no warning and no undo. Use a blank drive, or move anything you care about off it first.
01
Get the right drive
You need at least 8 GB. Use 16 GB if you want both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions on the one drive, which is worth doing if the machines in the room are a mixed bag. Plug it into your laptop.
02
Download the Media Creation Tool
Go to Microsoft's official download page. Do not use any other site: installers for Windows are a favourite hiding place for malware, and the only version you can trust is the one straight from Microsoft.
Under Create Windows 10 installation media, click Download Now.
03
Run it and accept the licence
Open the downloaded file. It is called MediaCreationTool followed by a string of numbers, which
is just the version. Windows will ask whether you want to let it make changes: say yes. Read the licence
terms, then click Accept.
04
Choose what you are doing
The tool offers to upgrade the laptop you are sitting at, which is not what you want. Select Create installation media (USB flash drive, DVD, or ISO file) for another PC, then Next.
⚠ Read this screen properly
Picking the first option by accident starts an upgrade of your own laptop. If you see anything mentioning "Upgrade this PC now", go back.
05
Language, architecture and edition
Untick Use the recommended options for this PC if you need to change anything. Leave the architecture on 64-bit unless your teacher tells you otherwise, then click Next.
32-bit or 64-bit?
The difference is how much data the processor handles at once, and how much memory it can address. A 32-bit system works in smaller chunks and cannot use more than about 4 GB of RAM, no matter how much you install. A 64-bit system moves much larger chunks at a time and can address an enormous amount of RAM. It has been the standard for years, so choose 64-bit unless you are deliberately reviving something ancient.
06
Choose USB flash drive
Select USB flash drive rather than ISO file, and click Next. An ISO is a disc image you would have to write to a drive yourself afterwards, which is extra work you do not need.
07
Pick the correct drive
The list shows every removable drive attached to the laptop. Check the letter and the size against the drive you actually plugged in, then click Next.
⚠ If you have a second USB drive or an external hard drive connected, it appears in this list too, and choosing it wipes it. Confirm the drive letter before you click.
08
Wait, then finish
The tool downloads Windows 10, verifies it, and writes the bootable drive. Leave the laptop plugged in and awake, and go and work on the desktop. When it reports that the USB flash drive is ready, click Finish and eject the drive safely.
If it goes wrong
Common stumbles
| What you see | What to do |
|---|---|
| The drive does not appear in the list | Unplug it and try a different port. If it still does not show, the drive may be faulty or formatted in a way Windows cannot read. |
| It fails partway through the download | Almost always the network dropping out. Start the tool again. It does not resume, so it begins the download from scratch. |
| "There is not enough space" | The drive is under 8 GB, or something else is on it. Use a larger drive. |
| It is taking forever | Normal. Cheap USB 2.0 drives write very slowly. Leave it alone and get on with the teardown. |
Lesson 01 · 100 minutes
HARDWARE
Strip a desktop PC down to its parts, work out what each one does, and record the evidence.
● Done by the end of the lesson
- The case is open and every major component has been identified.
- Seven photos taken, each with a description in your own words.
- The hardware check quiz is passed.
First Nations innovator
Mikaela Jade
Cabrogal woman, Dharug-speaking nation · Founder and CEO, Indigital
Mikaela Jade was a national park ranger when she first saw augmented reality demonstrated, and realised it could carry Aboriginal stories at cultural sites that had none. She taught herself the technology by cold-calling engineers around the world, and in 2014 launched Indigital, Australia's first Indigenous edu-tech company. Her point is worth holding onto while you take a computer apart: the people who have been engineering on this continent for 65,000 years are not new to this work.
01
Set up your bench
Nothing gets opened until every item below is done.
02
Open the case
Remove the thumb screws or Phillips screws holding the side panel, slide it off and set it somewhere it will not get stood on. Photograph the inside before you remove anything — that photo is your map for the rebuild next lesson.
03
Find your bearings
Tap any part of the diagram to see what it is and what it does. Match it against the real machine in front of you before you start removing things.
The abbreviations, spelled out
Hardware is full of initialisms. These six come up constantly, so learn them now.
- CPU
- Central Processing Unit. The processor.
- PSU
- Power Supply Unit. The box that converts mains power for the components.
- HDD
- Hard Disk Drive. Storage that uses spinning magnetic platters.
- SSD
- Solid State Drive. Storage with no moving parts, much faster than an HDD.
- PCI-E
- Peripheral Component Interconnect Express. The long slot expansion cards plug into.
- BIOS
- Basic Input/Output System. The firmware that starts the machine. You meet it in Lesson 2.
04
Remove, photograph, describe
Work through the components below. Photograph each one, write what it does in your own words, and put anything you removed back before starting the next. Do not leave parts loose on the bench.
⚠ Three things you do not remove
- The CPU stays in its socket. Take the heatsink off and photograph the chip where it sits. The contact pins bend under almost no force, and a bent pin ends the build.
- The motherboard stays in the case. Photograph it mounted. There is nothing to learn from unscrewing it and a great deal to lose.
- The PSU never gets opened. Photograph it in place. Its capacitors hold a dangerous charge long after the machine is unplugged.
Lesson 02 · 100 minutes
BUILD
Put it back together, prove the BIOS can see everything, and install a fresh copy of Windows.
First Nations innovator
Yirigaa
Founded 2020 by the Mundine family · Wiradjuri word for "morning star"
Yirigaa is a majority Aboriginal-owned technology company working in cyber security, cloud and managed IT services. Alongside the client work, they run internships, scholarships and training pathways to get Indigenous and regional Australians into technology careers. The skills you are using today — assembling hardware, configuring firmware, installing an operating system — are the entry point to exactly that industry.
01
Rebuild it
Work backwards through Lesson 1 and use your photos as the reference. The motherboard and CPU never left the case, so this is about getting everything you did remove back where it belongs, firmly.
02
First power-on and BIOS check
What the BIOS actually is
BIOS stands for Basic Input/Output System. It is firmware on a chip on the motherboard. It is the first software that runs when you hit the power button, well before Windows exists on the machine.
- POST
- Power-On Self-Test. Checks the CPU, RAM and drives are present and responding. Fail this and you get beeps, not a desktop.
- Boot order
- The list of devices the BIOS tries to load an operating system from, in order.
- UEFI
- The modern replacement for the old text-only BIOS. Same job, graphical interface, mouse support.
Leave the USB drives out for now. Connect the monitor and keyboard, plug in the power, and press the power button. Watch for a line like "Press DEL / F2 / F10 to enter Setup" and tap that key repeatedly.
⚠ Nothing happens at all?
- No lights or fans: check the wall socket, the PSU switch, and the 24-pin connector.
- Fans spin but no display: reseat the RAM and check the monitor cable is in the GPU, not the motherboard.
- Repeating beeps: power down and reseat the RAM, then the CPU power connector.
Record what the BIOS reports:
| Reading | What your BIOS shows |
|---|---|
| CPU model and speed | |
| RAM detected | |
| Storage drive detected | |
| BIOS / UEFI version | |
| Errors or warnings |
03
Change the boot order
The drive is empty, so the BIOS has nothing to boot from. Move USB to the top of the list and it will load the Windows installer from the thumb drive instead.
04
Install Windows
Windows 10 Setup loads from the Operating Systems USB drive. Work down the list. The install stage is a long wait, so use it to catch up on your Lesson 1 descriptions.
What a partition is
A drive is one lump of physical storage. A partition divides it into sections that Windows can treat as separate drives, each with its own file system and its own drive letter. A drive with no partitions is unusable space, which is why Setup makes you create one before it can copy anything across.
Deleting a partition removes the record of where every file sat. The data is still physically on the drive until something overwrites it, but as far as Windows is concerned it is gone.
Lesson 03 · 100 minutes
NETWORK
+ GAMES
Six PCs, one switch, six addresses. Prove they can talk to each other, then put the network to work.
● Pace yourself
Steps 1 to 5 are the network and should take about 60 minutes. Step 6 is the game. If you run out of time, finish the game next lesson — but do not leave the network half-built.
First Nations innovator
Dion Devow
Ngemba man · Indigenous entrepreneur and technology advocate
Dion Devow works on building technology and cyber security capability in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. His observation is that the value of being connected, and of being secure once you are, is not obvious to everyone — it takes trust and practical skill to make the case. The four-machine network you are about to build is the same idea as the infrastructure connecting communities, hospitals and businesses, just small enough to see all of it at once.
Watch first
Two videos before you start
Ten minutes now saves you an hour of guessing later. Both open in a new tab.
The idea
Addresses on a network
An IP address is a street address for a machine
Four numbers between 0 and 255, separated by dots: 192.168.1.23. Each number is called an
octet. Every device on a network needs a unique one, or data has no way of knowing which machine to
arrive at.
- Private
- Used inside a local network, like
192.168.1.10. Not visible from the internet. - Public
- Given to you by an internet provider. How your whole school looks from the outside.
- Subnet mask
255.255.255.0splits the address: which part names the network, which part names the device on it.- Switch
- The box in the middle. It learns which machine is on which port and forwards data only to the one it is addressed to.
What the subnet mask is actually for
The mask works like a filter. Before a device sends anything, it compares its own address against the destination through the mask, and gets one of two answers: same local network, or somewhere else.
Under 255.255.255.0, the three octets covered by the 255s must match. The final octet is free to differ, because that is the part naming the individual machine.
| You are | Sending to | The mask says | So the data goes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 192.168.1.10 | 192.168.1.12 | First three octets match, same network | Straight through the switch |
| 192.168.1.10 | 192.168.2.50 | Third octet differs, different network | Out through a router |
That second row is why the gateway box stays empty on your bench. There is no router here, so anything the mask decides is on another network has nowhere to go. It also explains why every machine in your group must sit on 192.168.1.x. Put one PC on 192.168.2.x and it will be invisible to the rest, even though the cable is plugged into the same switch.
⚑ Your address today
You are not assigned yet. Set your PC number on the Start here tab and it will fill in everywhere on this page.
01
Wire it up
The switch sits in the middle of the bench. One Ethernet cable from each PC to any numbered port.
02
Set your static IP
Windows would normally ask a router for an address. There is no router here, so you assign one by hand.
- Right-click the network icon in the taskbar, open Network & Internet settings.
- Click Change adapter options.
- Right-click Ethernet, choose Properties.
- Select Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4), click Properties.
- Choose Use the following IP address.
- IP address: 192.168.1.___
- Subnet mask:
255.255.255.0 - Default gateway: leave it blank. There is no internet on this network.
- OK on every window.
| PC | IP address | Who is on it | Link LED lit |
|---|---|---|---|
| PC 1 | 192.168.1.10 | ||
| PC 2 | 192.168.1.11 | ||
| PC 3 | 192.168.1.12 | ||
| PC 4 | 192.168.1.13 | ||
| PC 5 | 192.168.1.14 | ||
| PC 6 | 192.168.1.15 |
03
Practise the commands here first
This is a practice console built into the page. Get the syntax right here, then run the real thing in
Command Prompt on your PC. Try ipconfig, then ping one of your group's addresses.
Type help if you get stuck.
C:\>
04
Run ipconfig for real
ipconfig reports the network settings of every adapter in your machine. Use it to confirm the
address you just set actually took effect.
05
Ping the others, then scan the network
What ping does
It sends four tiny packets to an address and waits. Replies with a time in milliseconds means the two machines can talk. "Request timed out" means the packets went nowhere, or nothing came back.
| Target | Command you typed | Reply time | Worked |
|---|---|---|---|
| PC 1 | |||
| PC 2 | |||
| PC 3 | |||
| PC 4 | |||
| PC 5 | |||
| PC 6 |
Now see the whole network at once. Advanced IP Scanner sweeps a range of
addresses and lists everything that answers. Install it from the Application Software USB drive onto
one machine in the group, set the range to 192.168.1.1 – 192.168.1.254, and scan.
| Device | IP found | Computer name | MAC address |
|---|---|---|---|
| PC 1 | |||
| PC 2 | |||
| PC 3 | |||
| PC 4 | |||
| PC 5 | |||
| PC 6 |
⚑ Worth thinking about
You just discovered every machine on that network, along with its name and the unique hardware address of its network card, without touching any of them. Nobody gave you permission. That is why scanning a network you do not own or administer is a serious matter, and in many cases an offence.
06
Put the network to work
Why a game is the real test
A LAN game is the network doing something demanding. Every position update and every shot travels through your switch and nowhere else, which is why latency is under a millisecond and there is no lag from the internet. One machine hosts the session; the others join it using the host's IP address. If ping worked in Step 5, this will work too.
⚑ Everything is already on the Application Software USB
You do not need to download anything, and there is no internet on this network anyway. Every game below is on the Application Software USB drive, alongside Advanced IP Scanner. Your group picks one game and everybody installs the same one. The websites are there if you want to read more or install a game at home later.
Teeworlds
2D platform shooter
Fast, cartoonish and easy to pick up. Grappling hooks, small maps and a lot of falling off things. The friendliest game on the list for a first LAN match.
teeworlds.com ↗Xonotic
Arena first-person shooter
A very fast arena shooter in the Quake tradition. Rocket jumps, laser trails and almost no time to think. Expect to lose badly for the first ten minutes.
xonotic.org ↗Luanti
Voxel sandbox (formerly Minetest)
An open-source voxel world engine. Mine, build and wire up contraptions together on a shared map. Good if your group would rather build than shoot.
luanti.org ↗0 A.D.
Historical real-time strategy
Ancient warfare, built to the same standard as commercial strategy games. Slower and more thoughtful than OpenRA, and it looks superb.
play0ad.com ↗FreeCiv
Turn-based empire building
Build a civilisation from one settler to a space programme. Turn-based, so nobody gets left behind, and matches can run across several lessons.
freeciv.org ↗Halo
Sci-fi first-person shooter
The one most of you already know. Vehicles, big open maps and team objectives. Supplied on the Application Software USB drive only.
On the USB drive onlyEveryone: copy your group's chosen game from the Application Software USB drive, install it with the default options, and launch it once to confirm it opens cleanly.
PC 1 hosts. Open the game, find the Multiplayer or LAN menu, and choose to create or host a game. Name the session, set the map and mode your teacher specifies, and start it. Then tell your group: "connect to 192.168.1.10".
Everyone else joins. Multiplayer, then join or connect, and enter 192.168.1.10. Wait in the lobby until every name appears, then PC 1 starts the match.
⚠ Cannot see the game
- Windows Firewall prompt on first launch? Allow the game on private networks.
- Host pings fine but no session appears: type the host's IP address in manually rather than waiting for the server browser to find it.
- Everyone must be running the same game and the same version of it.
- Still stuck? Ping the host again. If that fails it is a network problem, not a game problem, so go back to Step 5.
Lesson 04 · 100 minutes · Spare
FINISH
+ PLAY
Close the gaps in your booklet, answer the reflection questions, then earn the rest of the lesson.
Outstanding work
What you still owe
This list builds itself from what you have and have not done. Clear it before the tournament starts.
First Nations innovator
Indigital Schools
Founded by Mikaela Jade, Cabrogal woman of the Dharug-speaking nation
Indigital's schools program has students learning augmented reality, geospatial technology and digital skills alongside local Elders, so that the technical training and the cultural knowledge arrive together rather than in competition. The delivery depends on exactly the kind of networked infrastructure you spent three lessons building. Someone has to rack the hardware and configure the addresses before any of the clever software matters.
Reflection
Show what you know
Answer in full sentences and in your own words. These are marked by your teacher, not by the page.
If you finish early
Push it further
Optional. Try any of these on your group's network, and note what you find.
| Try this | What you are looking for |
|---|---|
| hostname | The name your PC announces to the network. Compare it with what the IP scanner reported. |
| arp -a | The table mapping IP addresses to MAC addresses your PC has learnt. Which machines has yours actually spoken to? |
| ping -t 192.168.1.10 | A continuous ping. Run it while a match is going and watch what happens to the times. Ctrl+C to stop. |
| tracert 192.168.1.11 | The route packets take. On a LAN this is a single hop. Why? |
| Unplug one cable | Ping that machine. Read the error carefully. Now plug it back in and time how long recovery takes. |
Sign off
Achievement summary
Technician territory
Wiping a drive from the command line
Never run this on a home computer.
There is no confirmation prompt, no progress bar you can cancel, no recycle bin and no undo. The instant you press Enter, every partition on the selected disk is gone, along with every photo, assignment and save file on it. People have destroyed a family's entire photo library with this exact command because they picked the wrong disk number.
Run it on a lab machine, on a drive your teacher has told you to wipe, with your teacher in the room. Nowhere else.
You already did a gentler version of this in Lesson 2 when you deleted partitions during Windows Setup.
diskpart is the tool technicians use when Setup will not cooperate: a drive with a corrupted
partition table, a machine being repurposed, or hardware leaving the school and needing its data gone.
The commands
Right-click Command Prompt and choose "Run as administrator".
C:\> diskpart
DISKPART> list disk ← read this output carefully
Disk ### Status Size Free
-------- ------------- ------- -------
Disk 0 Online 238 GB 0 B
Disk 1 Online 14 GB 0 B ← this is the USB drive
DISKPART> select disk 0
DISKPART> clean
DiskPart succeeded in cleaning the disk.
DISKPART> exit
Step 3 is the one that matters.
list disk shows every drive attached to the machine,
including your USB drive and anything else plugged in. Match the size column against the drive you
actually mean to erase. Get the number wrong at select and clean will do exactly
what you told it to, immediately and permanently.
clean and clean all are not the same
| Command | What it does | Time |
|---|---|---|
| clean | Erases the partition table, so the drive appears empty and unallocated. The data is still physically there until something overwrites it, and recovery software can often get it back. | Seconds |
| clean all | Writes zeros across every sector of the drive. Nothing is recoverable afterwards. This is what you use before hardware leaves the organisation. | Hours |
After either command the drive has no partitions at all, so Windows will not show it in File Explorer until you create one, either in Disk Management or during a fresh install.
Your work
MY BOOKLET
Everything you have recorded, in one place. Export it when you are done and submit that file.
0% complete
Between lessons
Save and restore
⚠ Do this at the end of every lesson
Your work lives in this browser on this machine. Download the progress file, keep it in your OneDrive, and load it back in next lesson.
Saves as a .json file containing every answer, tick,
quiz result and photo.
Hand it in
Export your finished booklet
This produces a single self-contained page with your name, all your answers, every photo and your quiz results. Open it to check it, then submit it.
Preview
What will be submitted
Start over
Clears every answer, tick, quiz result and photo on this machine. This cannot be undone.