Los Alamos Mid School (72)

= Computer Simulation of Dark Matter Effects on Galaxy Collisons'''. =

Awards

 * 2nd Prize $500 Cash Prize
 * Category:Crowd Favorite
 * Category:Best Presentation

Team
The Los Alamos Mid School team (#72) is from Los Alamos.

Team Member

 * Cole Kendrick

Mentor

 * Brian Kendrick

Complete Challenge Entry: Final Report, Source Code, Video
Final Report
 * Written Final Report

Source Code
 * Collide_v4.0.c Normal cpu code
 * CollideMPI.c parallelized code using MPI
 * vcolor_dual.c code used to process files outputted from the codes above. This is used to make movies and plots of the simulations.

Video
 * Need link to YouTube Video to Finalist Judges

Comments from Judges

 * Cleve_Moler: Serious supercomputing.

Comparison to last year's project

 * Improved its model with dark matter distributed around the galaxy instead of at a point mass at the center of the galaxy.
 * Instead of using this model to reconcile theoretical predictions of red/blue shifts in other galaxies with experimental observations(last year), the model was used to study the collision of two galaxies(this year).
 * Significant work beyond last years project!

Comments on last Year's Project
Although last year's work does not count in this years competition, comments on that work does shed light on this years project.

Kathy Pallis and Sue King, Tech Writers at LANL
This paper presents research that is an astounding accomplishment for a middle school student. The problem is well described and illustrated. N-body and nearest neighbor are the key computational concepts and were well described in the report. The conclusions were based on the paper's findings and are consistent with previous research.

ABQ Journal Article
NEED proper citation. NEED to figure out copyright issues!

Seventh-Grader Wins News Mexico Supercomputing Challenge

Cole Kendrick would have had a long wait to track the rotation of an entire galaxy, so he used Python code to write a computer program that condensed 1 billion years into about 15 days.

But that was also too long to wait, so he learned the faster C code language, and turned 1 billion years into 20 hours.

Kendrick is 13, a seventh-grader at Los Alamos Middle School, and on Tuesday he took first place at the 21st New Mexico Supercomputing Challenge, hosted by Los Alamos National Laboratory. The annual contest pits hundreds of elementary through high school students against each other in a kind of science fair intended to teach them how to use computers to analyze, model and solve real-world problems.

Replicating professional research
Cole is using normal consumer grade computer hardware to replicate the work of professionals using much more powerful hardware. --Drew 13:20, 28 April 2012 (PDT)

Suggestions for future research
Cole has extensive plans for new work on this project. He will almost certainly be a contender in next year's competition.

--Drew 13:54, 28 April 2012 (PDT)

History: Proposal, Interim Report

 * Los Alamos Mid School (72)/Proposal
 * Los Alamos Mid School (72)/Interim Report