Using clusters in undergraduate research: Distributed animation rendering, photo processing, and image transcoding

With distributed and parallel computing becoming increasingly important in both industrial and scientific endeavors, it is imperative that students are introduced to the challenges and methods of high performance and high throughput computing. Because these topics are often absent in standard undergraduate computer science curriculums, it is necessary to encourage and support independent research and study involving distributed and parallel computing. In this paper, we present three undergraduate research projects that utilize distributed computing clusters: animation rendering, photo processing, and image transcoding. We describe the challenges faced in each project, examine the solutions developed by the students, and then evaluate the performance and behavior of each system. At the end, we reflect on our experience using distributed clusters in undergraduate research and offer six general guidelines for mentoring and pursing distributed computing research projects with undergraduates. Overall, these projects effectively promote skills in high performance and high throughput computing while enhancing the undergraduate educational experience.