Wee Archie goes to EngFest 2.0

The event took place on October 17th in the IET London: Savoy Place in the heart of London, near the River Thames. It caught my attention that the walls of the stairs were decorated with pictures of important scientists such as Alan Turing.

Three of us travelled to the event to explain how high performance computing can be used to solve a wide range of problems. We took along Wee Archie, our cluster of 18 Raspberry Pis, and showed our aircraft demo where three parameters for an aircraft wing (angle, camber, and thickness) can be customised. Once a user has chosen the values for these parameters, Wee Archie makes the calculations by using 16 Raspberry Pis in parallel (the other two Raspberry Pis are used for management purposes).

The results show the aerodynamics of the designed wing, the air pressure around it, and lift that the wing generates. The user can then discover whether the plane will fly based on the lift for the wing they have designed. In addition, another animation shows how far their aeroplane could fly on a single tank of fuel based on the aerodynamics of the wing (the drag). More details of this demo can be found in EPCC News 81.

Some students wanted to find out more about ARCHER, Wee Archie's big sibling, which is hosted by EPCC. Others were interested in the physics behind the aircraft demo. Among the other commercial and academic exhibitions there was a robot that dances popular songs like “Macarena”. I must admit it danced quite well.