Within the Intro to Computer Science class, students huddle around the projector. Holding controllers, students take turns not playing the new Call of Duty or The Finals. Instead, they play Super Mario Kart for the Super Nintendo. 

And they’re playing on machines they built. 

By using a Raspberry Pi (tiny computer), the class are getting a blast from the past by creating old-school miniature gaming consoles.

“(The Raspberry Pi runs) a little operating system,” Antonio Byers, a freshman said. “By using a cable you can connect to the computer, and then as soon as you login to the computer, you have to get a mini controller and be able to configure it on a Raspberry Pi. 

“Once you configure it, then you can start the process of getting the game.”

The operating system, RetroPie, is an all-in-one emulation tool for running a variety of consoles and games.

“There’s actually about 60 different systems that (RetroPie) can load,” Mr. Longacre explained, “all the way from Atari to one of the first PlayStations, so think about all the things in between: GameCube, Sega Genisis, and Dreamcast. You can get whatever.”

By building the system and setting up the console, the students get hands-on experience with computers.

“It’s not just playing the game,” Mr. Longacre said. “You have to set up the operating system; [you] have to format the flash drive to a certain file system type.”

Once the work is done, though, students are rewarded with fun and games as an end-of-year treat.

“We’re doing a Mario Kart Tournament on Friday,” Navon Williams, freshman, said.