Chemistry by FlashMob 2005

September 15th, 5:30-9pm at Thomas Great Hall, Bryn Mawr College.

The FlashMob supercomputer joint Philadelphia Local Section – COMP division event on September 15, 2005 was a grand success. About 60 attendees, including ACS local section members, COMP division members, local college faculty and students from chemistry and other fields and high school teachers and students enjoyed dinner and the chance to see how accessible parallel computing can be. Fifteen laptop computers got the chance to channel their inner supercomputer while the audience watched science happen. One high school chemistry teacher is now working to stage a similar event with his advanced chemistry students for mole day in October, one local college faculty member is working to set up such a cluster with her bioinformatics colleagues and another left with the materials to set up one for her research group, hoping to jump start a grant to get a more permanent cluster. Local college students enjoyed the chance to watch scientific research happen and to be able to ask questions about the research and the computing. An e-mail from a participant the next day sums it up:

“Wow! The Chemistry by Flashmob 2005 was certainly inspiring.”

"The Scientists" coverage of the FlashMob: http://media.the-scientist.com/blog/display/100/

Chemistry by FlashMob 2004

The FlashMob I (http://www.flashmobcomputing.org/) organizers and the COMP division teamed up to build a 48-node supercomputer in a day and used it to solve an interesting chemical problem. The event will be held at the ACS National Meeting in Philadelphia on Wednesday, August 25.

A FlashMob is a unique way to assemble a temporary (yes temporary!) supercomputer out of laptop computers, desktop computers, and the like that you just have "laying around the house." Unlike computer clusters that are permanently assembled and need highly trained staff for their care and feeding, a FlashMob cluster is assembled by simply rebooting a collection of computers with a special CD to run one problem. When the problem is done, you take out the CD and the notebooks and desktops go back to their mundane, day-to-day existence. For "Chemistry by FlashMob 2004," created a one-day supercomputer out of 48 ordinary laptop computers to run a NAMD molecular dynamics problem.

The spores of Bacillus anthracis (anthrax) have been used as a biological weapon against the military and the civilian population. Protection against anthrax infection is a national homeland defense priority. The goal of “Chemistry by FlashMob 2004” is to compute the structural motion and necessary transitions in the sequestration of CaM by EF using steered molecular dynamics. Large scale computational resources are required for this project. The challenge is to use the FlashMob event to complete the simulation using NAMD.

COMP thanks Semichem for their support of the inaugural Chemistry by FlashMob event.