Hardware Testing Instructor Responsibilities

Always Remember: Supporting Advanced Testing volunteers is our number one priority as staff instructors! This means:

• Welcoming incoming volunteers at the beginning of the shift
• Introducing yourself to volunteers you haven't met before, or whose names you don't remember
• Giving volunteers choices about the kind of work they want to do that day, based on AT's needs, when possible
  • Appropriately engage each volunteer in an appropriate task, trying to get all tasks covered
  • Which volunteers are present during your shift? What are their strengths and weaknesses? Do they want to learn something new? Match up their interests with priority tasks
• Teaching volunteers how to test different kinds of gizmos, based on their interest, or facilitating another volunteer to teach them (as appropriate)
• Making them aware of their resources, *especially* our documentation, but also Google, the FG wiki, other volunteers, and you!
• Being available for any questions that they may have
• Remaining patient and friendly while maintaining good boundaries
• Providing volunteers opportunities to work on special projects, as is needed and appropriate
• Be sure to thank volunteers for their work as they leave

Oversight Checklist

Beginning of Shift

• Prioritize tasks based on current stock, store and Build needs - and update the white board
• Welcome volunteers and direct them to prioritized tasks
• Hard Drives - swap tested drives, load drives to be wiped
• Remember to delegate! But if no volunteers are available:
  • Swap tested memory, load memory to be tested
  • Sort boxes of power supplies that come from Receiving, routing them to other areas
  • Sorting lock box incoming in tardis into appropriate boxes
  • Sort wireless mice and keyboards into boxes by brand
  • Sort incoming optical drives, cards and networking devices

During Shift

• Be available to answer volunteers' questions and to support their endeavors
• Hard drive testing:
  • Pull and label all tested hard drives. Recycle the failed ones.
  • Stock all the machines. Your goal is to keep TARDIS as free of unwiped hard drives as much as you can.
  • Repair failed machines as necessary
  • REPORT PROBLEMS WITH MACHINES WHEN THEY HAPPEN (either to those with the know-how to fix 'em or on the AT instructor mailing list)
  • Remember to never leave unwiped drives unattended anywhere in Advanced Testing

End of Shift

• Make sure volunteers clean up their areas and that the area is neat and organized for the next shift
  • This includes emptying all yellow recycling bins - make sure all volunteers are familiar with this process!
  • This also includes recycling destroyed failed hard drives when the bin is full or close to full
• Make sure that all wiped hard drives are brought to TARDIS and sorted according to size (empty green bin!)

End of Day

• Lock up all hard drives - remember to check Store Returns bin & Incoming shelves
• Put away testing equipment
• Set up drives to test over night, but not on the weekend
• Turn off all unused computers and LCD monitors

Advanced Testing Tasks

• Power Supply Sorting
• Card Sorting
• Hard Drive Testing
• External Hard Drive Enclosure Testing
• Optical Drive Testing
• External Optical Drive Testing
• RAM Testing
• Motherboard Testing
• Processor Testing
• Video Card Testing
• Network Testing
• Wireless Keyboard & Mice Testing
• Bluetooth Headset Testing
• Wireless Cards - PCI and laptop PC Bus
• Empty Recycling Bins