Mar. 23—EAU CLAIRE — They’d used a computer many times before, but Thursday was the first time that Kathy Ripienski and her son, Reid, 8, ever dug inside of one.
“We’ve never done this before, have we?” the Eau Claire mom said to her boy as they took apart an old Dell desktop CPU.
With a small screwdriver in hand, Reid’s gaze passed over the parts they hadn’t yet removed from the plastic and metal box, seeking out the next one he wanted to pull out and get a closer look at.
“It looks cool. It looks really neat,” he said while hovering over the circuit boards, wires, fans, memory chips and other parts strewn across a table.
They were among the more than 60 people who dropped into Tech Take Apart, one of the activities that L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library has hosted this week for families to do during spring break while children are out of school.
“We are aware that kids and…
