Learning to Drive

Today we went on a tour of the super computing lab. I could tell from the beginning that I was going to like this tour. I mean, it has 'computing' in the name of the lab. How could you possibly go wrong?

To start off, we got to look at the actual machines. Which, according to the engineers, aren't really the interesting part. I mean it's just a whole bunch of computers connected on a special network placed in really close proximity in a fairly freezing room. That has lots of locked doors. While I agree that what you can do with super computers is probably a lot more exciting, it's still pretty cool to see it all set up. :D

There's a whole building next door just for cooling these down

I would hate to try to find the one misplaced wire..

After seeing the machines we got to experience some of their computing power in the CAVE, a virtual environment that used 3D projections on 5 walls of a cube combined with 3D glasses equipped with markers to track position and orientation to give you an interactive experience. We only got a liiitle dizzy.

There were many different simulations. We started with more static models, like a car in a wind tunnel, but looked at the space station, a coal furnace, and a water plant before getting to possibly the most interesting, a driving simulator.

I don't have a driver's license. I mean, I took driver's ed, and even had a permit until it expired, but I've only driven a car twice. And basically all of it was in parking lots. So me + a driving simulator was destined for failure. Luckily, even if you crashed, the chair didn't throw you into the steering wheel.