Student Cluster Competition        

• What is the name of your team and why did you choose it?
  
  Our team name, deFAUlt, is made out of the following parts: de is short for Germany (Deutschland), and FAU is the name of our university, the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg.
  
  
• Why do you think your team will have an edge in the event (what's your secret sauce)?
  
  Our secret sauce is the refreshing and vitalizing mate-extract beverage from Münchsteinach, Germany, the Club Mate. The non-alcoholic drink is produced in Middle Franconia, close to Erlangen. It allows us to work NONSTOP because of the caffeine in it. And it is indeed very refreshing!
  
  
• What have you done to prepare that makes your team unique?
  
  We contacted various members of the local computing center at our university to discuss some of our problems with experts in this field. We also talked to the previous teams to get an impression of the competition. During the last half year we visited a lecture to get in touch with system administration and benchmarking. We completely set up a virtual cluster in small teams from scratch to gain first hands-on experience. We also deepened our understanding for the applications by accurately examining their functionality and how to optimize their results. After that, everybody researched Linpack and HPCG on the various clusters of the Regional Computing Center Erlangen to determine the power consumption, efficiency, node-scaling abilities, as well as the impact of different matrix dimensions and frequencies.
  
  
• What are you most looking forward to in the competition?
  
  We expect to not get any sleep—hah, just kidding ;) We are really looking forward to socializing with the members of other teams and talk to them about their studies and differences between different countries. We also hope to experience the conference, talk to potential future employers and get an insight of their jobs. For many of us, it is the first time to travel to the USA—halfway around the world!
  
  
• How long will it take you to get to Dallas?
  
  We will need:
  • one hour to get to the airport (from Erlangen to Nuremberg airport)
  • approximately 14 hours for the flight (from 6am in Germany until 2pm in Dallas), and
  • an unknown time to pass the passport control.
  
  We hope that the jetlag won't be too bad, because we change from UTC+1 to UTC-6, which are seven hours difference. But our Mate drink will help us out; )
  
  
• What do your team members do for fun?
  
  We like to do different kinds of sports, for example dancing, skateboarding, running or cycling. Many of us play instruments like the flute, the piano or the guitar (maybe one instrument will get to the SC to wake up every one sleeping during the competition).
  
  And of course, we like to spend time in front of a computer, may it be for playing computer games or for tinkering on it. And sleeping. But honestly, who doesn't like sleeping? ;)
  
  
• If your team had a theme song, what would it be?
  
  Our theme song is the song Wissenswertes über Erlangen from the Hitparade 1982. It tells something about our city so we think it is perfect for calling it 'our song'. You can watch this masterpiece on youtube, follow the link:
  
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_k20C8hOEs
  
  
  
  
• Can you share an interesting fact about your team?
  
  All together, we can speak many different languages— more than we are members in our team! Below is a brief list of our language skill set:
  • German
  • English
  • Ukrainian
  • Japanese
  • French
  • Swedish
  • Latin
  • Russian
  • C / C++
  • java
  • python
  • shell
  • sed
  • prolog
  • coq
  • scala
  • ruby
  • html
  • vgo
  • lua
  • cuda
  • x86 and mips assembly
  • javascript
  • and many more; )
  
  We hope we can use ALL of them for socializing;)