The premise for this article is simple. We take a hard working 16-year-old intern here at BoxGods who has been eagerly waiting to mod his PC for almost three years, fly him to South Texas (with said PC), and spend seven days in a “get it done or die trying” Mod-A-Thon.

First, a little back story. Mr Slacker and several of his friends live in New York City and are all very much into computers and gaming. They are all good students—solid grades, no issues with the law, etc—which turns out to be a problem in and of itself. When you live in an apartment, as most people in cities tend to do, where do you work on your mod? Spray painting, cutting, etc. require shop space or, at the very least, a carport or back yard. Apparently, standing on the sidewalk in NYC with a can of spray paint is only OK if you're tagging something.

We tried to find some space for Slacker and his friends to use as a “PC Modding Club” at their school, local youth centers, and various businesses--with no luck. Kids + paint + power tools = nope! It turns out that if Slacker and his friends were “at risk” students who had messed with drugs, gangs, or had otherwise gotten into trouble, they would have plenty of opportunity, but as over-achievers who toe-the-line, they get the short end.

It is our hope that this series of articles might raise modding awareness in cities/communities across America, and that civic minded individuals, schools, companies, and other groups might create programs where teens have a safe place to get together and mod their PC's. If you have space, care about young adults, like PC's , want more information, or just want to get involved--you can reach us here and we will add your contact information with a description of your program to our data base. If you're high school aged and would like to find or start a modding group in your area, you can contact us here.

Above and below are some images of Mr Slacker's finished case mod. As you can see, he did a fantastic job--it really came out great. Good mods start with a solid theme and Mr Slacker chose a subject near and dear to his heart--the old flag from Belarus, his home before immigrating to the US. Some of you may have seen on the news all the turmoil currently going on in Belarus. BoxGods is not a platform for political issues, of course, but more information can be found here if you're interested.

This article gave us a unique opportunity to present a typical case mod in a step-by-step fashion from the viewpoint of a novice. I also believe that those of you with a few mods under your belt can still find good information here and there throughout the article. I am going to turn the bulk of the writing over to Mr Slacker (it is his story after all), though I will interject comments in italics, and will write the conclusion.

As there is too much material here for a single article, we are going to give you the highlights of the mod and his experiences and impressions, then offer more in-depth looks at each portion of the construction via links to individual tutorials. Read on.