SDSC Sandbox

The SDSC Sandbox is a space at the San Diego Supercomputer Center for UCSD undergraduates to develop learning materials for middle and high school students to learn parallel computing. Right now, we're focusing on the Raspberry Pi as the ideal tool for presenting a simplified model of a supercomputer. Trust us, it's a lot easier to build a cluster out of computers that weigh less than 1% of a typical server--and the network team is more than willing to part with 100BASE-TX switches.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Simplifying the Joysticks' Wiring

Our Parallel Pong game uses a couple of Zippy Joysticks, which have been connected via a breadboard. In order to free the joysticks from the bulky breadboard and ensure more secure wiring, we acquired a small Adafruit PermaProto board and a ribbon cable to transfer the functions of the Raspberry Pi's GPIO pins directly to the board.

PermaProto Board and ribbon cable