jdb@neptune.anu.OZ.AU (John Barlow) (08/03/90)
Hello everybody. I am looking for material to show parallel computing
to kids (mostly aged around 8 to 15 years old). This isn't exactly easy,
any advice most welcome. The idea is to have (hopefully) interactive
displays that show kids that many processors in parallel can achieve
amazing things (I was thinking of many small hydralic pumps lifting a
big block, if enough kids pump then the block lifts).
Static displays don't capture kids attention as much, but for the adults
that will occasionally look at it, (and PR), I would like to put up some
static displays - any ideas ?
Access to several parallel machines is easily arranged (CM2, Sequent symmetry,
Ardent Titan, DAP 510, BBN butterfly II, Encore multimax, etc)
Graphics is another area that will capture kids attention (not that it teaches
them much about parallel computing, perhaps I could compare it with a PC doing
some graphics :-), Mandelbrot (and particularly fractals) is of
interest - anybody got any fractal programs for a CM2, using the framebuffer ?
jdb = John Barlow, Parallel Computing Research Facility,
Australian National University, I-Block, PO Box 4, Canberra, 2601, Australia.
email = jdb@arp.anu.oz.au {?? soon to be jdb@arp.anu.edu.au ??}
[International = +61 6, Australia = 06] [Phone = 2492930, Fax = 2490747]hiebeler@heretic.lanl.gov (David Hiebeler) (08/06/90)
Some of my colleagues and I have given lectures/presentations on
cellular automata ("CA"), to students of all ages, from junior high to
post-graduate.
Cellular automata, for those who aren't familiar with them, are
discrete dynamical systems, currently being studied by many
researchers for their potential use in simulating physical phenomena.
They're also very colorful and visual, and therefore great for
demonstrating to kids. You can teach a kid about diffusion or
compressional wave propagation by letting them watch (in real time)
say 30,000 particles moving and interacting. Young kids will ask
great questions like "What if we put more particles here?" or "what if
the lens is shaped like this instead of the way you have it?", while
older "kids" ask tougher questions like "what is the analogy of
temperature in this system?" :-) We think it's a good way to
brighten up lectures that are often somewhat boring, by bringing in
something colorful and fast but still useful and educational.
We generally perform these demos using a CAM ("Cellular Automata
Machine") board. This is a plug-in board for PC's and compatibles
that does cellular automata simulations at approx. Cray-1 speeds, for
about $2000. (See info below).
I also do CA work on Connection Machines. The CM is practically
built to do CA simulations, since CA are large SIMD systems with only
local interactions.
For an intro to CA techniques for physical modeling, the book to
look at is "Cellular Automata Machines: A New Environment for
Modeling", by Toffoli and Margolus (MIT Press, 1987). See also the
Physica D journal, volume 10 (1984) for the proceedings of the 1983 CA
conference held at Los Alamos. The proceedings of the '89 CA
conference should appear in Physica D sometime this year.
For more info on the CAM mentioned above, write to:
Automatrix, Inc.
P.O. Box 196
Rexford, NY 12148 USA
Automatrix will be producing various other cellular automata
products as well.
Also, there's a Sun-based cellular automata simulator available (for
free). Last summer, I added some code to it so that it can attach to a
Connection Machine as a compute-engine, to run the CA computations on
the CM but use the Sun to interact with the user. You can get version
2.5 of Cellsim via anonymous FTP from turing.cs.rpi.edu (128.213.1.1),
in the directory pub/cellsim (there's a README there). If you FTP it,
please do it during non-business hours (Eastern time).
I'm currently working on the next version of Cellsim, to make it
much more flexible (so it'll be easier to add in analysis modules to
run on top of the simulation). I'm not sure when it will be
available, but version 2.5 explains how to register to be notified of
updates (plus it will be announced here and several other newsgroups
when it's ready). I'm also developing some new software libraries for
the CAM.
If you're really interested, contact me, I have some more info I can
send.
--
Dave Hiebeler | Internet: hiebeler@heretic.lanl.gov
Complex Systems Group | Bitnet: userF3JL@rpitsmts
MS B213, Theoretical Division | UUCP: crdgw1!automtrx!hiebeler
Los Alamos National Laboratory / Los Alamos, NM 87545 USA