CENTER FOR COMPUTATION & TECHNOLOGY

Ruth Nan of Baton Rouge Magnet High did not know what to expect when she arrived last Monday at LSU for a week of High-Performance Computing Boot Camp. “It's called boot camp, so we were like, ‘Umm … ' ” Nan said. Little did Nan know, she and about 25 other Baton Rouge-area students would soon learn new computing languages and build their own supercomputing clusters of high-speed computers to take back to their high schools. The LSU Center for Computation and Technology and Chief Scientist Thomas Sterling developed the free summer boot camp as a pilot program to expand statewide as early as next year. “They literally assembled these themselves and loaded the software,” said Sterling, pointing to the computer monitors and the stacks of computing nodes on top each other. “They built these from bits and pieces, so it's really hands-on experience.” Sterling, who admitted he has never worked with high school students during his career until now, said he developed the program after realizing the need to reach out more to the local community. “I can't live in an ivory tower and assume we'll be delivered a steady stream of students,” said Sterling, who is best known for creating the Beowulf supercomputing cluster — a group of usually identical computers working together — while at NASA. While some of the participating students are computer junkies, Glen Oaks High School senior Marquinta Winding came to LSU for the boot camp with only marginal computer experience. “I'm not an expert, but I've gotten a whole lot better,” Winding said. “This really sparked my interest.” The progress of the students and the motivation of the high school computer teachers has been great, Sterling said. “They walked in Monday morning – didn't have a clue,” Sterling said. By the end of the week, the computer clusters they created were running 10 times faster than powerful laptop computers, Sterling said, with the potential to expand. “The end goal is pretty simple,” Sterling said. “It's to excite the students. “Frankly, these are kids,” he said. “They love toys and it excites them.” The boot camp funding came from the Center for Computation and Technology and donations from Microsoft and Dell. Jennifer Bevill, LSU's University Lab School technology instructor, said she was impressed everyone gave up part of their summer and that LSU even gave up some of its equipment. “Even with my background in computing, I was never exposed to supercomputing,” Bevill said. “There's a lot of great stuff we can bring back to the school.” University High junior Gregory Shaw said the week started out confusing but ended up very rewarding. “They're all college teachers, so it's fast-paced,” Shaw said. “But it's a great experience. “We can say we built a supercomputer.”