November 28, 2011
LittleFe wins the 2012 UCES Award
The CCG went to Seattle for SC11 and returned home with an award and a check!
Earlham's Cluster Computing Group attended the the annual SuperComputing conference, SC11, in Seattle recently. SC is one of the world's largest gathering of people who work in high performance computing and computation and data enabled science and engineering. It is sometimes described as Burning Man for geeks, this year about 12,000 of them. While there, the Earlham contingent presented their work on the LittleFe and BCCD projects (http://LittleFe.net, http://BCCD.net) and organized a series of buildout events for 15 college and university teams from across the United States.
While at the SuperComputing Conference Associate Professor Charlie Peck (EC '84), representing the LittleFe project, was chosen as the winner from 5 finalists for the 2012 Undergraduate Computational Engineering and Sciences (UCES) Award by the Krell Institute and the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. The purpose of the UCES Award program is to recognize undergraduate faculty who have recently developed courses, programs, and/or curricular material for computation and data enabled science and engineering. The award comes with a framed certificate and a check.
LittleFe is the hardware component of Acme, the turnkey appliance for high performance computing, computational science, and data enabled science education. The Bootable Cluster CD, a Linux distribution which comes bundled with the tools and libraries needed for high performance computing education, serves as the software stack for LittleFe. A few Earlham alums continue to work on the LittleFe and BCCD projects, including Skylar Thompson (EC '06), Andrew Fitz Gibbon (EC '09), and Aaron Weeden (EC '10). The students currently working on it are Mobeen Ludin and Ivan Babic. All of these folks were present at the award ceremony in Seattle and the ensuing dinner where they were joined by Ian McKinney (EC '09).
The LittleFe and BCCD projects are managed by a group of educators and education enthusiasts, currently those people are:
- Tom Murphy, Contra Costa College
- Jennifer Houchins, Shodor Education Foundation
- Charlie Peck, Earlham College
- Aaron Weeden, Shodor Education Foundation
- Skylar Thompson, Washington University
- Andrew Fitz Gibbon, Amazon
- Mobeen Ludin, Earlham College
- Ivan Babic, Earlham College
Our student interns are currently:
November 24, 2011
Results from the Undergraduate Research Poster Conference
The Undergraduate Research Poster Conference this year was a big success! We had two groups from the Computer Science department make and present posters: the Cluster Computing Group and the Theory Group.
The Cluster Computing Group presented a poster on LittleFe - The HPC Education Appliance. Juniors Ivan Babic and Mobeen Ludin work in the group with CS Professor Charlie Peck.
The Theory Group presented a poster on Simplest-Level Analysis of Linguistics Patterns’ Cognitive Complexity. Freshman Dakotah Lambert, sophomore Margaret Fero, and seniors Jeremy Hurst and Sean Wibel work in the group with CS Professor Jim Rogers.
November 23, 2011
2011 SuperComputing Conference
Earlham's Cluster Computing Group attended the the annual SuperComputing conference, SC11, in Seattle recently. SC is one of the world's largest gathering of people who work in high performance computing and computation and data enabled science and engineering. It is sometimes described as Burning Man for geeks, this year about 12,000 of them. Ivan Babic, Mobeen Ludin and Charlie Peck were there for a week working and eating with Skylar Thompson, Andrew Fitz Gibbon, and Aaron Weeden among others. They also saw Josh Hursey and Ian McKinney.
While at the conference they were primarily working on the LittleFe and BCCD projects (http://LittleFe.net, http:BCCD.net), the appliance for parallel and distributed computing education. During the conference the LittleFe project, in the face of Charlie Peck, was awarded the 2012 Undergraduate Computational Engineering and Sciences (UCES) Award by the Krell Institute and the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. The purpose of the UCES Award program is to recognize undergraduate faculty who have recently developed courses, programs, and/or curricular material for computation and data enabled science and engineering.
Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Conference
Elena Sergienko, a sophomore majoring in Computer Science, recently attended the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Conference. She had this to say about it:
"Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Conference happened this year in Portland, Oregon, November 9-12th. Named after one of the first programmers and compiler inventor Grace Murray Hopper, this series of conferences are particularly designed to engage women’s research and interests in computer science. The percentage of women perceiving a career in computer science decreases. That is why the conference focuses on increasing contributions of women in computing, establishing the connections and stimulating women’s interest in technological spheres. It provides women with the great chance to learn about new technologies, new research, to collaborate and learn from each other, as well as develop skills and knowledge. The theme of this year’s conference “What If…” was primarily concentrated on opportunities abounding computer science, particularly on how to make the world a better place through the use of technology. Among so many astonishing presenters, the invited speakers were the ones, who take positions in leading universities and big corporations. The speakers covered very amazing topics. Most of them, like “Programming DNA Molecules”, were co-related with other sciences and many spheres of everyday life. Most of the sessions also focused on the quality of computers science education and on spreading the knowledge of computer science throughout the community by volunteering or participating in educational projects.
"I, as well as any other attendee of that conference, gained a great amount of confidence and stimulation to continue to develop my interest in technological sphere. I learned a lot from the presenters, who were the women that attained great recognitions over their career. It was absolutely inspiring and highly educational to learn how those women have achieved such great results and obtained their leadership skills. Grace Hopper Conference was a wonderful opportunity to explore my own interests by learning from others and start believing in myself."