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GREENSBORO - Twelve-year-old Shuron Miller is getting a computer for Christmas this year.

Pentium 4 processor. DVD drive. Flat-screen monitor. Office software and Internet-ready to help with his schoolwork.

Pretty sweet.

And no, it won't be a surprise. After all, he built it himself Saturday.

A joint effort by the Organization to Provide Equal Access to Technology and Big Brothers Big Sisters brought 10 kids ages 10 to 15 to The Training Center on North Edgeworth Street for a daylong computer-building program.

At the end of the day, when all the bugs were worked out of the rebuilt and reformatted machines, each kid took one home to keep. For free.

"Putting it together was easier than I thought it would be," said Shuron, a seventh-grader at Mendenhall Middle School. "I liked it. I like working with computers."

It showed.

"He was the first one to get his up and running," Brandon Richards said proudly.

Richards, a 27-year-old geotechnical engineer at ECS Carolinas, has been Shuron's "big brother" since this summer. The two worked side by side on Saturday in a cramped conference room where 24 people crowded around a table, installing the parts to complete 10 IBM personal computers.

"It blows my mind," Richards said. "I personally believe the premise behind OPEAT is great. I'm glad these kids are going to have a computer in their homes. ... It's better than the set of encyclopedias I had when I was a kid. With a computer and the Internet, every piece of information in the world is at your fingertips."

Getting that information is a matter of motherboards and chip sets, processors and operating systems.

Paula Sieber, OPEAT's executive director, explained all that stuff as the day went on, demystifying the machinery's exposed innards of dull gray metal, green circuit boards and multicolored wires.

Sieber helped one young builder install a wafer-thin, delicate-looking part.

"You just use equal pressure on the RAM," she said. "Use two thumbs on two sides and push. You're not going to break it."

With enough pressure, the part slid into place with a snap.

"The most important thing about technology is not to be scared of it. We're taking the mystery out of it," Sieber told everyone around the table. "... You are the youngest and newest PC techs in Greensboro."

The hardware and software the young techs worked on Saturday came from nine individual and corporate sponsor donations, Sieber said, a combination of money and used equipment. One law firm upgraded its computers and donated its old machines. Another law firm donated money to buy flat-panel monitors. And so on.

After lunch, the group hit a roadblock. The operating systems wouldn't load on the partially assembled computers. A long process of trial and error ensued.

"I know it's frustrating," Sieber told the group, "but if it had gone really smoothly we wouldn't have learned as much. This is the real world."

Eventually, the first computer-building joint session between OPEAT and Big Brothers Big Sisters ended well.

It won't be the last, Sieber said.

"Some of these kids will come back and help the next group," she said. "That's the goal, and that's how you keep it going."

Contact Jeff Mills at 373-7024 or jeff.mills@news-record.com