Thinking inside the box

Senior personal computer science significant Conner Ozenne ’23 took on the Do-it-yourself problem as a STAR research job.

“It was a excellent chance to use what I have figured out in pc science lessons,” he claims. “It also assisted further my knowing of some foundational ideas like networking and parallel computing.”

He had to think inside the box – the 14-by-14-by-16-inch transparent acrylic housing, to be correct – to fit all the factors jointly as a cluster supercomputer.

“Initially, a whole lot of it was just calculations: How can we make this in shape in the box?” Ozenne says.

He utilized the precision laser cutter in the Deason Innovation Gymnasium campus makerspace to fabricate the airtight container.

“All of the sides were jagged puzzle items. If the cut was off by a millimeter, they wouldn’t healthy collectively,” he suggests.

Ozenne also experienced to deal with everything from price range management to supply-chain hiccups like discovering the correct sections on-line. Resources did not usually post precise specifications, so there was a good deal of returning and reordering.

“Another problem we experienced to determine out was how to electric power all these tiny desktops at when with out commencing a fire, which is always a concern,” Ozenne claims.