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Students Power Supercomputer with Bicycles
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..."
One MIT student is how many foot pounds per second?
So, the students don't run Linux... they bicycle it instead!
imagine how long the students of any other university would be able to power them!
Oh great, next they'll invent SkyNet.
If one of those guys goes by the nick 'Neo', I'm gonna get worried.
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.
Not really that useful and interesting How about taking a look into "powered by kicking" technology, make it available to the average joe, millions of kWh of power will be saved across the globe on a daily basis from frustrated computer users
It used to be research.
Then little errands. Get the professor a coke, pick up his stuff.
Then acting as tech support.
Then doing all the prof's work for him.
And now... running the system by the sweat of your brow.
We must draw the line somewhere, folks. Free labor has its limits!
This cannot bode well for graduate students... well... maybe for the chunky among us... but let's hope this doesn't catch on. I can already see profs carried about on the shoulders to and from meetings...
Oh man, I had written the below ages ago, and now there's a relevant story on /. ! ;-D )
(yes I could claim prior art but I'm not SCO
!!! welcome to the ENIAC democompo!!!
We are happy to announce the opening of the first demoparty dedicated to the ENIAC.
If you wish to participate, please agree to observe the following party rules:
1) Bring your own ENIACs. We do not want to see viruses on our system.
2) If you plug your ENIAC to the wall power plug, the PC, Amiga and Atari ST demomakers will saw your head off. At your own risk.
3) To give electrical power to your machine, we provide a bicycle room with attached generators. Please let us know a week in advance of the size of your group, so that we can get enough bicycles for everyone.
4) You are responsible of finding your own spot in the party room. Our ENIAC is already taking half of the available space.
5) It is forbidden to step on the wires.
6) "Flame" demo effects are forbidden. When we tried to achieve one, the vacuum tubes caught fire and we had to call 911. They were not very happy about it.
7) It is forbidden to spray paint graffiti on our ENIAC.
8) Domestic animals are forbidden. We will not pay for any damage caused by the stench of burned fur coming out of relay boxes.
9) You are responsible looking after your ENIAC. Dishonest persons may want to steal it at night.
10) It is STRICTLY forbidden to sleep on top of the ENIAC units.
11) Bring your own spare vacuum tubes and resistors. If you forget them you can buy them at the party but we will set the price... don't say we didn't tell you...
12) Musical creations are forbidden. Our musician tried to compose something and provoked the death of five dogs while trying to complete "Woof Woof ZAPPP !!", played with his newly created Music Tracker "LiveWireDogeeh".
13) Graphical creations are forbidden. Our graphist found a horrible death after making a vacuum tube box explode in an attempt to automatically create a drawing of Pamela Anderson on the floor with the glass shards. The result was not so great anyways.
14) The Bicycle Room has an excellent drink vending machine [rubs hands].
15) The coders are not allowed to access the ENIAC switches while the demo is running.
16) Any vacuum tube that fries during the demo cannot be replaced.
17) The "Plasma", "Shadebobs" or "Lens" demo effects are forbidden. Our coder placed some pot in the relay box so that we were stoned by the smoke and saw all kind of weird stuff.
18) If somebody does not respect these rules, people may be pissed off and quit the ENIAC scene !
The competition prices are as follows:
1. A brand new ENIAC
2. A Z80 building kit for every member of the group.
3. A box of General Electric vacuum tubes.
Good luck !
The ENIAC Demo Competition
OK, so they broke the record for human-powered computing. But what was the previous record? Was there even such a thing as a previous record? How is this new record actually measured? You know that more people will now try to break the MIT mark, and TFA is rather scant on details...
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.
Ahem. Sorry...
A quick google suggests that 400 W is about right for a rider in good condition for a short time.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Here you find a good overview of the possibilities of wind up power and bicycle machines
Please allow me to offer the Geekaflop, which will be defined as the number of gigaflops per bag of Chitos, as determined by the weight loss of 10 MIT students pedaling flat-out for 10 minutes to keep the supercomputer powered up.
The new term would be abbreviated "HaM"(Hamster Megacycles), thereby incorporating the longstanding scientific truism "We stand on the shoulders of giants".
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Maybe this would be a good way to powersupply future OLPC:s?
There are 2 types of people in the world - those who understand decimal and those who don't.
I once took part in a nutrition study that required each participant to ride a stationary bicycle for 20 min or so. I asked the lead researcher how much power a typical college student could produce. He said a healthy college student could produce about 180W for the duration of a test session.
The test itself was uncomfortable. There was no breeze to keep you cool (and, since the human body is only about 25% efficient, that meant you were dissipating > 500 W as heat), and you had to wear a mouthpiece to measure your oxygen uptake.
For that reason, I'm a little surprised that 10 cyclists without mouthpieces could only produce 1.2 kW for 20 min. Either their generators, drive mechanisms, and converters are not very efficient (most likely) or the MIT students need to do more exercise to get in better shape.
For those that aren't sure how watts measure up on a bicycle, use this calculator to figure out what equivalent speed that is. http://www.kreuzotter.de/english/espeed.htm
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.
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