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UB COMPUTER CENTER FAR AHEAD OF HOME PCS, STUDENTS FIND
Published on July 2, 1999
Author: ELMER PLOETZ
© The Buffalo News Inc.
Home PCs will never look the same to Lauren Parmington of Buffalo, one of several high school students in a special program at the University at Buffalo.
Eight students are participating in Western New York's first high school-level program at UB's Center for Computational Science, and they're working on a supercomputer similar to the computers used to make the films "Toy Story" and "Antz." "I can't even compare them," said Lauren, who's going into her junior year at Buffalo's City Honors High School. "We're using these computers in connection with the supercomputers, doing problems you can't even tackle with a PC. I think it has to do with the complexities." The high school students will develop an understanding of what's behind the big computers, said Bruce Pitman, director of the summer program. "They are going to find out that, all of a sudden, the big questions in science don't work on a little PC," he explained. The computer center was established in January as one of the top 10 academic supercomputing centers in the nation. There is no dedicated funding source for the summer program, so the center is pursuing money to offer more courses and workshops for high school and middle school students, as well as programs for teachers. The students were in the third day of a two-week program in which they use the high-end computers, coupled with visualization systems, to solve problems in chemistry. The supercomputer -- an SGI Origin2000 Server -- is roughly 6 feet high, 3 feet wide and 10 feet long. It contains 64 processors hooked together. "It's programming that takes lots of patience," said Dan Licata, who's going into his senior year at Amherst. "I've done some programming," said Dan, who built his own PC at home. "But not on this scale or using this language. This is on a different scale." The students are working on a molecular-simulation program developed for chemical engineering students. By the end of the program, they'll be expected to know how to prepare programs to run on supercomputers, a skill known by a relatively small number of computer professionals. "This program will give some of these bright students a jump-start on what real life computing is all about," said Greg Hylkema, an Orchard park physics teacher. "They'll be getting experience solving problems they will some day be working on in the field." For Lauren, that is looking like a possibility. "I've been thinking, after school I may want to enter into chemistry," she said. "This is really affecting that. Last year's Nobel Prize in chemistry was for someone in quantum mechanics, writing software." The other students in the program are Jessica Carroll of Williamsville, Jacqueline Krajewski of Amherst, Daniel McSkimming of West Seneca, Matt Piotrowski of Blasdell, John Shtarker of Williamsville and Elizabeth Tang of East Amherst.MELANIE KIMBLER/Buffalo NewsLauren Parmington, 15, of Buffalo, left, and Dan Licata, 16, of Amherst, center, work with U.B. math Professor Bruce Pitman.
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