[HH] solar powered supercomputer

[Tom Metro]

Tom Metro wrote:
> Then Brian DeLacey took the floor and gave an intro for a couple of
> videos featuring Kurt Keville demonstrating a 48-node supercomputer
> cluster running on solar power, built in a repurposed high-tech trash
> can. 

What was the name of the trash can you used? It obviously made a
convenient sized enclosure, but aside from that, why was it chosen?
Cheap? You happened to have one?

Was there a compactor mechanism inside that had to be gutted?

Did you build custom bracketing for the switches, USB hubs, and Pandaboards?


> This was built using $180 (each) Pandaboards, which use a
> top-of-the-line Cortex ARM CPU...

Any comment on the many-core ARM parts that have been mentioned on this
list previously? Do they lack the floating point hardware necessary to
be interesting for this use?


Quoting the meeting announcement:
> Abstract
> 	Bring your double aught and pith hat as we go hunting the big
> 	game of the LeopardBoard, Pandaboard, Eagleboard, Hawkboard,
> 	Craneboard, Bug, Lizard, Beagle and a
> 	virtual cornucopia of taxonomy!

Aside from the Pandaboard and Beagle board, are any of these things
real? If so, they weren't mentioned.

I had the impression there was going to be more hardware demoed than
just what Federico brought. (I guess Michael had 2 or 3 items.) Was it
impractical to bring in the supercomputer? Was a Pandaboard shown, other
than in the video?

The video talked some about the supercomputer hardware, but not in much
depth. A walk-through of the architecture, interconnects, and software
would have been nice. Was the presentation light on these details
because you covered this ground in prior years? Was this talk mostly
just a "here's where we're at now" update on the previous talks, rather
than meant to stand on its own?

I did like that Brian explained some of the motivation and practical
benefit to a project like this - being able to house a supercomputer in
a regular office environment without needing special cooling, power, or
it generating excessive noise.

Thanks Kurt and Brian for sharing your project with the group.

 -Tom