{"id":366,"date":"2019-08-26T23:12:13","date_gmt":"2019-08-26T23:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/mimenews\/?p=366"},"modified":"2019-11-08T17:21:54","modified_gmt":"2019-11-08T17:21:54","slug":"building-connections-by-pushing-limits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/mimenews\/2019\/08\/26\/building-connections-by-pushing-limits\/","title":{"rendered":"Building connections by pushing limits"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

OSU Overclocking provides students with real-world industry experience <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Mechanical engineering student Alec Nordlund uses liquid nitrogen to cool a CPU.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Seeing frost form on your computer parts would usually be cause\nfor alarm \u2013 but not for the members of OSU Overclockers. Frost is to be\nexpected when the key ingredient of your cooling system is liquid nitrogen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overclocking, or pushing a computer\u2019s processor past the\nmanufacturer\u2019s designed limits to achieve greater performance, introduces many\nchallenges that cover various engineering disciplines. Key among them, not\nturning expensive components into melted junk. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Across the world, overclockers compete to build and run the\nfastest and coolest (literally) machines. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Oregon State, this challenge has brought students from various\nmajor across the College of Engineering. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

 \u201cI\u2019ve always wanted\nan interdisciplinary competition that highlighted extreme thermal management,\u201d\nsaid Josh Gess, Welty Faculty Fellow and assistant professor of mechanical\nengineering. \u201cHigh-performance computer overclocking is the perfect marriage\nbetween electrical, computer science, and thermal engineering.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gess and one of his advisees, Matt Harrison, a doctoral\ncandidate in mechanical engineering started the group in 2018. In their first\ncompetition, they placed 10th out of 465 worldwide competitors. Since then,\ntheir success has continued. And that success has been noticed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last spring, they were invited to demonstrate their liquid\nnitrogen and dry ice cooled systems at IEEE\u2019s Intersociety Conference on\nThermal and Thermomechanical Phenomena in Electronic Systems, where\nrepresentatives from companies like Intel, Microsoft, and Google were in\nattendance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Frost forms on a liquid nitrogen pot, which is used in place of a typical PC heat sink.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was amazing and a little intimidating,\u201d said Alec\nNordlund, a mechanical engineering student and the group\u2019s vice chair. \u201cThere\nwas so much interest from industry professionals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That exposure is just what Gess and Harrison were hoping\nfor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe students on the team are learning fundamental\nthermodynamic principles years before they would typically see them in their\ncoursework,\u201d Gess said. \u201cIndustry partners love that we are preparing our\nstudents for more impactful experiences at their internships.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The students overclocking experience has fed directly into\ntheir academic work, with many using it as the basis for their senior capstone\nprojects. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese are undergraduate projects with undergraduates doing\nthe heavy lifting,\u201d Harrison said. \u201cThey are coming up with these ideas,\nthey’re coming up with the designs, and they’re coming up with the solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe computers we\u2019re working are like Ferrari\u2019s,\u201d said Rachel McAfee, a junior in mechanical engineering and the group\u2019s president. \u201cIf I can solve a thermal problem on the equivalent of a sports car, I can solve anything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A league of their own\u2026 for now<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The OSU Overclocker team.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

So far, overclocking in the United States has largely been\nthe realm of hobbyists and industry professionals. There are no intercollegiate\ncompletions. The Oregon State team is trying to change that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harrison has been heading an effort to form a new university\nleague where schools can compete against each other on a level playing field.\nHe and Gess are talking with a core group of universities and sharing best\npractices for how to apply overclocking in an academic setting. They hope to\nlaunch the league this coming academic year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re on the forefront of this,\u201d Harrison said. \u201cIt will be\ninteresting to see how this develops as it expands because I think each group at\neach university is going to be unique and they’re not going to be cookie\ncutters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gess is also up for the competitive challenge and looking\ntoward a future of collegiate rivalries. \u201cI am so excited to see where this\ngoes, especially when we start beating other universities,\u201d said Gess. \u201cSince\nwe are the first, we will have the leg up, but we know the competition will be\nfierce once other universities figure out what we have going on here at Oregon\nState University.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you would like to learn more about OSU Overclockers or\nhow to join the league, email Matt Harrison, harrism3@oregonstate.edu<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OSU Overclocking provides students with real-world industry experience Seeing frost form on your computer parts would usually be cause for alarm \u2013 but not for the members of OSU Overclockers. Frost is to be expected when the key ingredient of your cooling system is liquid nitrogen. Overclocking, or pushing a computer\u2019s processor past the manufacturer\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8354,"featured_media":367,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[911,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-students","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/osu-wams-blogs-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs.dir\/2791\/files\/2019\/08\/overclocker1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pb5IIW-5U","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/mimenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/mimenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/mimenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/mimenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8354"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/mimenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/mimenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":460,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/mimenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366\/revisions\/460"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/mimenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/mimenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/mimenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/mimenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}