Tag: Computing

SPIKE Goes Karting

After weeks of online SuperTuxKart championships, it was time for the PhD members of the SPIKE research group to race in real life. On Sunday, 8 March, 2020 (just before a pandemic took over the world), SPIKE members enjoyed an eventful evening of go karting followed by a group dinner.

The evening was a chance to help foster the team spirit of the research group, and enable collaboration that goes beyond the day to day activities of each member’s individual research journey. As one PhD student put it:

“Karting was an unequalled experience: the wind on my face, the speed making the kart almost fly… It would have been that, if I had not worn a helmet, and I had not driven as slow as a stroll in the park (cit.).
But it was my first time karting at all, and as they say, better safe than sorry, right?
Anyway, it was a fun experience. It was cool to see people you normally see at work in a more relaxed atmosphere, where you don’t feel guilty if you’re not discussing work.​”

All in all, it was an evening to remember. Thanks to the Graduate School for sponsoring it.

Diversity in Physics Ice Skating Group

For the post-grad Women in Physics Christmas social we organized an ice skating outing to the rink at the Natural History Museum. This event was also open to PG women in Computing, as we hope to run many events together in the future. The group was a mix of physics, maths and computing students and we had a mixture of all years of students and a couple of post docs. This was the first event combining the two departments. We all met and introduced ourselves in the Physics Department before walking over to the Natural History Museum together. Within the group there were a few girls who have never ice skated before and the rest of us have been at least a few times before. This made for a nice group. The inexperienced skaters were shown what to do and helped around the rink by various other girls. Everyone really enjoyed the skating! We skated for 50 minutes and then headed up to the bar for mulled wine to warm up and chat. The event was a great success and we will be holding it again next year. It was also a positive start for what we hope to be a collaborative and supportive community between the PG women in physics, maths and computing.

Cross-CDT Fair – Pain Relief for Scientific Computing

Did you ever wonder what most of PhD students at the College have in common? They need to compute to finish their degree. The task can be as simple as a quick data analysis or as complex as creating a new software package. Did you also know that most of the students arrive with a minimal background in computing? A lot of them find themselves in a “sink or swim” situation. After experiencing this ourselves, we decided that we don’t want others to suffer the same fate and make the same mistakes. To bring the issue into the spotlight, we decided to organise a Fair that featured exhibits dedicated to essential computing skills that every student should know before they attempt to “swim”.  

The Fair happened on October 11th, 2017 and it was a success. We had at least 60 visitors – after that we lost count. We invited CDT cohorts as well as PhD students across the College to come, network and pick up useful tips. The event started on a high note, almost everyone showed up right when the door opened. The visitors dispersed around the exhibits and listened to what we had to say. The ones that needed a bit of help with getting enthusiastic got cookies coffee or tea. We had an incredibly busy three hours at the exhibits as well as giving short talks.

After picking up useful computing tips and hints, the audience had a chance to visit a poster session at the Fair. We invited open source software projects from the College to present to the students. Many of these packages can be applied to various types of projects. Who knows, maybe we encouraged future collaborations.

The pizza and beer arrived just in time, one could not keep this pace much longer. The networking part that followed went very smoothly.

With the Fair out of the way, we intend to continue our effort to educate the cohorts via the Scientific Computing Support Network. There is a good chance that we’ll organise the Fair again. Note to self – keep it simple and order more pizza.

Many thanks to the Graduate School, Platform for Research in Simulation Methods and the Research Computing Service for funding and many thanks to everyone who contributed to the poster session.

Thomas Bendall, MPE
Eduardo Ramos Fernandez, TSM Matthew Garrod, MPE
Thomas Gibson, MPE Michael Haigh, MPE
Hemant Khatri, Math Department Smitha Maretvadakethope, Fluids Josephine Park, MPE
Sergio Perez, Fluids Matthew Taylor, HiPEDS
The Computational Methods Hub