As the students returned for the first day of their second week of SSP, Dr. Panoff wasted no time in restarting the students' minds by presenting a math problem on the board. The students were asked to solve it within 15 minutes, but also figure out how to solve the same problem with different numbers in different ways. Once everyone had a chance to solve the problem, Dr. Panoff provided an overview of the week with a surprise: the SSP students were going to give a presentation for their parents and the Shodor staff on Friday! But, before their presentations, they were going to learn about Web skills such as Javascript, HTML 5, parallel computing, and parallel thinking. Dr. Panoff introduced the parallel concept by going back and explaining the math problem from the board and how parallel thinking is just like solving a math problem in different ways simultaneously.
Next, the students started working with parallel computing by working on a reading exercise. Each student was given a sheet o ten complex questions, each of which required a slightly different approach, and was expected to sign their name at the bottom of the sheet indicating they had completed the list. In actuality, the rules were not the focus of the lesson, rather it was the concept of rules and orders which Dr. Panoff expounded upon by giving the kids a new problem. After dividing the class into several small groups, he asked them to solve the following problem: "There are 10 children and 2 chaperones at a grocery store. If they have a long list of items, a van to hold everything, and exactly enough money to purchase everything, but have restrictions on who can shop with whom, how many different ways can the group accomplish their shopping?" Next, everyone tried physically demonstrating the two forms of decomposition; function and domain decomposition, by working as human puzzles. Each arm was considered a processor which meant each person was a dual-processor. First, one person started working on the puzzle, then another person began working, and then another person pitched in. This pattern continued until everyone was working on the puzzle, demonstrating how much faster multiple processors accomplish tasks when compared to a single, or small number of processors. One of the key things that the group discovered though was that, even though the puzzle came together faster, building a puzzle with a lot of people requires more communication. Parallel computing is no different, with more processors comes the need for more data transfer.
After lunch the class quickly reviewed their day thus far, including the core concepts of parallel work, new jargon, and definitions for new terms. Afterwards, the Shodor staff gave the SSP group a demonstration of a real-life parallel computing using a cluster computer called "LittleFe." Then, based on the example LittleFe provided, the students learned how cluster computing worked by combining groups of normal computers. First they broke up into groups based on their networks, then they assigned one computer and person to be their "head node." The head node was responsible for inserting the BCCD disc and starting the cluster. Once everyone had started their computers they learned a little bit about Linux computing and how to write in command lines, an important skill as the BCCD disc was designed to work on a Linux platform. The group opened a program called GalaxSee, a virtual model of a galaxy, and tried running it using parallel processing. This was the last skill for the day, but it really showed how powerful parallel processing can be as the GalaxSee program ran much faster by using parallel processors!