CAMM: Young minds explore local supercomputer
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Supercomputers have been on the rise since the 1960s. In Waco, you can find one at
Texas State Technical College.
The TSTC supercomputer is part of a new high-performance computing program, and Department Chair Walton Yantis and his students built it.
"A supercomputer is a large machine with multiple processors. High-performance computing is everywhere. The banking industry uses it. Obviously, NASA uses it," Yantis explained.
At TSTC, the supercomputer serves as an educational tool, not only for college students, but also for a much younger population.
Rapoport Academy seventh-grade student Gavin Whelan and his big brother Aidan got a tour of the machine.
"I think it's just so amazing how much you can do with it, how huge it is and also how much power it needs to run," Gavin said.
Yantis explained to the boys what the technology is capable of producing.
"Pharmaceutical companies are utilizing high-performance computing to simulate the interaction of drugs in the body," Yantis said.
The students, though young, are not too young to understand the significance of the machinery.
"A couple years ago, people would have been amazed that this is possible, but then to actually create it and have it right here and have it available to students like us is, you know, it's great," Aidan said.
The technology also gives students an idea of how critical something like this is to solving problems.
"People over the years can put knowledge in there, and then it's more efficient than a book to be able to access all that knowledge at once," Gavin said.
Yantis said a supercomputer can cut research time in half. For example, he said, a regular desktop computer could take up to 11 years to determine where a hurricane might hit if there was one in the Gulf of Mexico, and a supercomputer could do it in two days or less.
Yantis said TSTC's HPC program is one of only two in the nation to offer an associate’s degree.
News 8's parent company, Time Warner Cable, has launched its own initiative to get young people interested in science, technology, engineering and math. For more information on the program, visit ConnectAMillionMinds.com.