A team of engineers at the University of Southampton have revealed that they have constructed a supercomputer using 64 Raspberry Pi devices and Lego. Leading the team of computational engineers was Professor Simon Cox, who explained that they were determined to discover whether it was possible to link so many Raspberry Pi devices as to turn them into a so-called supercomputer.
To this end, the engineers installed and built all of the necessary software on the Pi, beginning with a standard Debian Wheezy system image. And the team has already published a guide that allows computing and programming enthusiasts to build their own supercomputer.
Interestingly, the racking was constructed using Lego, while the Raspberry Pi devices have been programmed using free-of-charge software over the last few months. It cost less than £2,500 to build, according to the research team, which confirmed that it features a total of 64 processors and 1Tb of memory.
"The first test we ran - well obviously we calculated Pi on the Raspberry Pi using MPI, which is a well-known first test for any new supercomputer," Professor Cox explained.
"The team wants to see this low-cost system as a starting point to inspire and enable students to apply high-performance computing and data handling to tackle complex engineering and scientific challenges as part of our on-going outreach activities."
Another member of the research team, James Cox, provided specialist support on Lego and system testing. He was especially impressed with the Raspberry Pi device, saying: "It is amazing that I can hold it in my hand and write computer programs or play games on it."
