DENVER, Colo., Feb. 28 — Team submissions are now being accepted for the SC13 edition of the Student Cluster Competition, a spirited event featuring young supercomputing talent from around the world competing to build and operate powerful cluster computers. The deadline for team submissions is Fri., April 12, 2013. SC13, the leading international conference on high performance computing, networking, storage and analysis, will be held Nov. 17-22,  2013, in Denver.

Created as an opportunity to showcase student expertise in a friendly yet spirited competition, the Student Cluster Competition aims to introduce the next generation of students to the high-performance computing community. Over the last couple of years, the competition has drawn teams from around the world, including Canada, China, Costa Rica, Germany, Russia, Taiwan and the United States.

Team proposals must be submitted via the SC13 submission site at https://submissions.supercomputing.org/. More information about the Student Cluster Competition can be found at http://sc13.supercomputing.org/content/student-cluster-competition.

In this real-time, non-stop, 48-hour competiton, teams of undergraduate and/or high school students assemble small cluster computers on the SC13 exhibit floor and race to demonstrate the greatest sustained performance across a series of applications. In the Standard Track, teams of six students will partner with vendors to design and build a cutting-edge cluster from commercially available components that does not exceed a 26-amp power limit, and they will work with application experts to tune and run the competition codes.

New at SC13 is the Commodity Cluster track. In this track, teams of five undergraduate and/or high school students will bring commercially available hardware that is not to exceed a $2,500 retail price limit and a 15-amp power limit. Both “off-the-shelf” and “off-the-wall” solutions are encouraged.

“The energy and dedication that the student teams bring to the Student Cluster Competition is inspiring, especially as they work around the clock to overcome obstacles and get their systems up and running,” said Student Cluster Competition Chair Dustin Leverman of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. “Though they are competing against one another, the teams also share a camaraderie as they race to the end.”

Questions about rules or applications can be submitted via the Student Cluster Competition question board at: https://groups.google.com/d/forum/student-cluster-competition13. If teams do not want to post their questions publicly in the Q&A forum, they can be sent to: student-cluster-competition@info.supercomputing.org.

The Student Cluster Competiton is part of the HPC Interconnections program (formerly SC Communities), which brings together programs designed to support emerging leaders and groups that have traditionally been underrepresented in computing. This program provides opportunities for students, faculty, early-career professionals and international attendees to participate in the SC Conference through our Ambassadors, Broader Engagement, HPC Educators, Student Cluster Competition and Student Volunteers activities.

Limited travel support is available for some of these programs; we encourage you to apply. Applications open April 1 for Broader Engagement and Student Volunteers, and May 1 for HPC Educators.

About SC13

SC13, sponsored by the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) and the IEEE Computer Society, offers a complete technical education program and exhibition to showcase the many ways high performance computing, networking, storage and analysis lead to advances in scientific discovery, research, education and commerce. This premier international conference includes a globally attended technical program, workshops, tutorials, a world class exhibit area, demonstrations and opportunities for hands-on learning.

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Source: SC13