Earlham College | News from Public Affairs

With a videographer from Intel Corporation recording his every move, Earlham Associate Professor of Computer Science Charlie Peck uses a single screwdriver to put together a working network server during the recent SuperComputing '06 conference in Tampa, Fla. Peck accomplished the task in 10 minutes flat, bettering the attempts of six other contestants from universities nationwide.

Earlham College Associate Professor of Computer Science Charlie Peck is the country's newly crowned "Ultimate Geek," according to marketing executives of computer chip maker Intel Corporation, following his impressive "talent" demonstration at the recent SuperComputing '06 conference in Tampa, Fla.

Using nothing more than a single screwdriver, Peck successfully assembled all the pieces of a network server — central processing units (CPUs), heat sinks, memory sticks, network interfaces, cooling ducts and the like — in 10 minutes flat, in the process besting six other contestants from institutions including Georgia Tech, the University of North Carolina, the University of California at San Diego and New Mexico Tech.

For his efforts, Peck won for the College a 16-node computer cluster valued at roughly $40,000. The new piece of computational hardware should be delivered some time in early January and, says Peck, will be used to support the development of curriculum modules for teaching high performance computing to scientists as well as Earlham undergraduates.

"It will get lots of use," Peck says, adding that the unit also should help to advance a number of ongoing faculty research projects at Earlham. Already his on-campus Cluster Computing Group is providing computational support for investigations by Assistant Professor of Chemistry Lori Watson into the effects of agricultural pesticide runoff on area ponds and streams, Professor of Biology John Iverson's examination of phylogenetic inference in frog genomes and Assistant Professor of Biology Peter Blair's National Institutes of Health-funded study of inaccurately predicted gene structures in the Plasmodium yoelii malaria genome.

Ultimately, says Peck, the new cluster will be placed, too, on the Open Science Grid — a consortium of U.S. colleges and national laboratories involved in large-scale science — where it will be available as a computer resource for computational scientists across the country.

The opportunity to win the cluster for Earlham was his sole motivation for entering the "Ultimate Geek" competition, reports the normally retiring Peck, who despite having considerable hands-on experience building various computer devices says that knowledge actually had very little to do with his victory. Instead, he credits his background as a local volunteer firefighter and emergency medical technician (EMT).

"As an EMT, you get a lot of practice focusing on doing one thing, doing it correctly and in as little time as possible," explains Peck, after 16 years with the nearby Boston Township Volunteer Fire Department now risen to the rank of assistant chief. "That really helped a lot in terms of dealing with some of the distractions in the conference center while I was putting things together."

Among those "distractions" was a videographer capturing Peck's handiwork for projection on a large plasma screen mounted above the exhibition area, "kind of like one of those cooking demonstrations you sometimes see," says Ned Thanhouser, marketing manager for Intel in Portland, Ore.

The friendly competition involving Peck and his higher education colleagues was a very popular attraction during the super computing conference, adds Thanhouser, who characterized the Earlham professor's performance as "superior in all respects."

In addition to the new computer cluster (featuring Intel's new quad core processor introduced at the conference), Peck's "prize package" includes ongoing software support and a free annual user's license from the company.

Equally important for Peck, meanwhile, is the fact that by winning the high-performance cluster in just 10 minutes, he saved himself many hours of work preparing a grant proposal to the National Science Foundation for the same purpose.

His only regret, says Peck, is that having just returned from the computer conference in Tampa, he probably will not attend a like event upcoming in San Francisco, where the grand prize for a similar contest is an electric car.

Contact:
Charlie Peck, associate professor of computer science
765/983-1667 — E-Mail Charlie