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Students Power Supercomputer with Bicycles

Posted by samzenpus on from the those-crazy-college-kids dept.

inkslinger77 writes "A team of ten MIT students powered a supercomputer for twenty minutes by pedaling bicycles. They duly claimed the world record for human-powered computing (HPC). They powered a SiCortex SC648 supercomputer with a Linux cluster of 648 CPUs and almost 1TB of main memory in a single cabinet. The system is low-powered and draws 1,200 watts without needing special power supplies or cooling..."

3 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. Wasted Their Breath by LaskoVortex · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They should have just gone over to the nearest administrative offices and unplugged all of the CRTs running "screen savers". This would have freed power to run the computer even longer and wouldn't have been as tiring.

    --
    Just callin' it like I see it.
  2. Most... Pathetic... Story... Ever by ishmaelflood · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well fuck me dead, somebody has figured out how to convert mechanical work into electrical energy. Trust those whacky kids at MIT to pull it off.

  3. Effeciency? Bah! by Dan+East · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The brain consumes somewhere around 20 watts, and the estimated processing power of the human brain is somewhere between 10 and 100000 teraflops, with a storage capacity somewhere in the terabyte range. Now, we enjoy that processing power while completely at rest, without having to exert ourselves at all. Granted, our architecture isn't suited for some of the tasks a supercomputer is put to, on the other hand there are many incredibly rudimentary thinking tasks that the computer cannot perform no matter how powerful it is.

    Dan East

    --
    Better known as 318230.