University Team Builds Lego and Raspberry Pi Cluster

[wraggster]

A team of computational engineers (http://www.southampton.ac.uk/~sjc/raspberrypi/) over at the University of Southampton led by Professor Simon Cox have built a supercomputer using Raspberry Pi and Lego (http://paritynews.com/hardware/item/302-engineers-build-supercomputer-using-raspberry-pi-lego). The supercomputer is comprised of 64 processors, 1TB of storage (16GB SD cards in each of the Raspberry Pis) and can be powered on using just a single 13-amp mains socket. MPI is used for communications between the nodes through the ethernet port. The team managed to build the core of the supercomputer for under £2500. Named 'Iridis-Pi' after University of Southampton's supercomputer Iridis (http://cmg.soton.ac.uk/iridis), the supercomputer runs software that was built using Python and Scratch. Professor Cox used the free plug-in 'Python Tools for Visual Studio' to develop code for the Raspberry Pi."Lots of pictures (http://www.southampton.ac.uk/~sjc/raspberrypi/pi_pictures.htm) of the thing, and a howto on making your own (http://www.southampton.ac.uk/~sjc/raspberrypi/pi_supercomputer_southampton.htm).

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/09/12/145256/university-team-builds-lego-and-raspberry-pi-cluster