Instead of hanging out at the pool, 90 metro girls spent four days this week digging into the guts of a computer, taking them apart and building their own.

They pulled on shock guard wristbands and tackled an array of computer parts scattered on their desks at Southern Polytechnic State University. They connected hard drives, RAMs to the motherboard, the brains of their disassembled computers. They had fun doing it.

Jessica McGowan/jmcgowan@ajc.com (ENLARGE)

Kirstin Everson, 14, of Acworth (left) and Melvana Johnson, 13, of Kennesaw look at a modem as they identify parts of a computer during Geek Squad Summer Academy.

Jessica McGowan/jmcgowan@ajc.com (ENLARGE)

Lauren Kirby, 12, examines a hard drive. About 90 girls participated in the camp.

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Waving parts in the air, the LoLcats squad broke into the camp cheer, "Geek Squad, We're Cool," then connected the electronic components.

Digital Divas, Cyber Girls and Thirteen37 groups were in other classrooms conquering HTML. They learned how to network computers (orange balloons on strings floated overhead to illustrate how information travels through the Internet).

And they found out how to make technology environmentally friendly.

It was Geek Squad Summer Academy — a pilot program of Best Buy, a big-box electronic store's computer service and repair division, which is taking its summer camp to 12 cities this year.

Girls from Cobb, Fulton and DeKalb counties clamored to get into the camp.

The Atlanta camp filled up in four days, with 200 more applicants turned away, said Girl Scout officials.

The Girl Scout Council of Northwest Georgia partnered with the Geek Squad camp, offering the camp opportunity to Scouts.

"It was a perfect fit for us," said Katie Bower, the council's special projects coordinator.

To stay relevant for girls in today's society, Girl Scouts offer Internet safety badges, car mechanics and use the annual cookie sales as a way to teach girls budgeting, finance and marketing skills, she said.

In another program, "Girls Go Tech," they build robots.

Thursday the geek girls graduate, more tech savvy.

And, hopefully, they have more confidence to pursue careers in technology, engineering, math and science, fields traditionally dominated by males.

Geek Squad Summer Academy is the brainchild of academy director Moira Hardek, who is based at Best Buy in Richfield, Minn.

"I got tired of being the only girl on our service team," said Hardek, an 11-year information technology veteran. "It's very rare to see a woman in IT. Hopefully, we can break that barrier. Girls shy away from it. This is a way of making them more comfortable with technology."

Hardek helped write the curriculum.

She built in fun breakout sessions — such as interactive video games playing guitars and drums, digital camera treasure hunts and relay races for computer parts.

Giving up swim time for geek camp wasn't a hardship for Haylee Hyatt, a sixth-grader at DeKalb's Kittredge Magnet School.

"It's totally worth it," she said. "I love computers more than TV. If I wasn't here, I'd be going swimming or playing on my computer. The geek thing doesn't bother me."