A Portable Cluster for Each Student

Although some colleges and universities have access to parallel computing hardware, none that we are aware of can provide dedicated parallel computing hardware to each student. Instead, institutions often provide shared parallel computing equipment for the students, if they can afford to provide any. It is difficult for students to really get an understanding of the performance of their programs and how they scale when they are using shared equipment that is not dedicated to them and where other students or other users may interfere with their work. The current emphasis on network security at some institutions also prevents some shared resources that students could use from being easily accessible or sometimes accessible at all. We provide a parts list, information, and microSD card images to make a small, affordable compute cluster that each student in a parallel computing course can purchase in lieu of a textbook so each student has their own private compute cluster.