Student Cluster Competition

          Bobby            Daren            Tiffany            Bruce               Johnny              Andy

About Tiffany Kuo:

• What's your major and what led you to pick it?
  My major is Computer Science. Because my father’s job is related to computer, he taught me many knowledge about it while I was a child. When I grow up, I also took some courses and still think that it is very interesting, so I choose Computer Science as my major.
• In what other events like this have you competed? Was that as a team or individually? How did you do?
  I have competed in TSCC14, 15(Taiwan Student Cluster Competition) and ASC15 (Asian Student Supercomputer Challenge), all are as a team. Every time we all work very hard to win the competition, and we win the championship in TSCC and the third place in ASC, I really learn a lot from those competitions.
• What training routine are you following to prepare for this year's SCC15 competition?
  In normal time, we will take courses and learn about the knowledge of supercomputer, includes parallel programming, cuda...And for this year’s SCC15 competition, each team member is responsible for part of the competition contents. We will meet every week to discuss what we’ve learned and what questions we’ve encountered while preparing for the competition. By this way we can understand the applications of the competition better and better.
• What's your primary role on your current team and why did you get that assignment?
  I’m the leader of our team, responsible for job assignment and integration. Because I have participated in some supercomputer competitions since sophomore, so I have more experiences than the other team members.
• What's been your most challenging assignment in preparing for this competition? Do you think that assignment gave you an advantage in the competition?
  The most challenging part is that we not only need to figure out the most efficient way to run the application but also need to understand its physical meaning. And yes, we have studied very hard and are able to face different conditions in the competition.
• What's been the easiest part of preparing for the competition so far? How about the most difficult?
  Since our team members have known each other for a long time, the communication and cooperation between us are very well. In every week’s meeting and discussion we can get to the point very quickly, and think of a way to solve the problem. But because we are all major in Computer Science, and the application are about physics, biology… We need to ask the expert to understand the application, and that’s really a difficult part while preparing for this competition.
• What architectural details can you share that will put fear into the hearts of your competitors?
  We are using the server supported by Quanta Computer, and it’s very stable and power efficient. With their support, we can have a great result in the competition!
• What do you like about mysteries? How are your preparing for the mystery application?
  I think mysteries is a very interesting part in this competition, we need to run and understand it in a very short time. So in normal time we have many training that can enhance our ability and knowledge, all that training can turn to power and help us facing the mystery application.
• Why do you want to win? What are you willing to do to win?
  All of our team members have spent a lot of time preparing for this competition, we even sacrifice some sleeping and leisure time in order to get a better grade. We really want to win and prove our ability and hard working!
• What are you planning to do after the competition is over?
  Since this competition is such a good opportunity to learn more about supercomputing, after the competition I will keep promoting it and share my knowledge and experiences to our junior students.