Supercomputing Challenge

Vision Statement

The Vision of the Supercomputing Challenge is to be a nationally recognized program that promotes critical thinking and project-based learning in science and engineering so that the next generation of high school graduates is better prepared to compete in an information based economy.

Mission Statement

The Supercomputing Challenge provides a venue for budding scientists, researchers, and engineers to learn computational science skills (modeling or simulations, data collection, visualization, research, and algorithms) applicable to numerous STEM fields. Middle and high school students are introduced to multidisciplinary research skills through a project-based learning framework where they develop and solve problems from description to implementation. The Challenge welcomes all interested students but also makes great efforts to reach young women, minorities, rural populations, and economically disadvantaged youth.

About the Challenge

The Supercomputing Challenge is an exciting program that offers a truly unique experience to students in our state. The opportunity to work on the most powerful computers in the world is currently available to only a very few students in the entire United States, but in New Mexico, it is just one of the benefits of living in the “Land of Enchantment.”

The Supercomputing Challenge is a program encompassing the school year in which teams of students complete science projects using high-performance supercomputers. Each team of up to five students and a sponsoring teacher defines and works on a single computational project of its own choosing. Throughout the program, help and support are given to the teams by their project advisers and the Supercomputing Challenge organizers and sponsors.

The Supercomputing Challenge is open to all interested students in grades 4 through 12 on a non-selective basis. The program has no grade point, class enrollment or computer experience prerequisites. Participants come from public, private, parochial, and home-based schools in all areas of New Mexico. The important requirement for participating is a real desire to learn about science and computing. Supercomputing Challenge teams tackle a range of interesting problems to solve. The most successful projects address a topic that holds great interest for the team. In recent years, ideas for projects have come from Astronomy, Biology, Geology, Physics, Ecology, Mathematics, Economics, Sociology, and Computer Science. It is very important that the problem a team chooses is what we call “real world” and not imaginary. A “real world” problem has measurable components. We use the term Computational Science to refer to science problems that we wish to solve and explain using computer models. See science projects for details and examples from the April 2023 Final Reports.

The Supercomputing Challenge is like a marathon.

Those teams who make significant progress on their projects can enter the projects in the competition for awards of savings bonds and scholarships for the individuals and computer equipment for the school. Team trophies are also awarded for: Teamwork, Best Written Report, Best Professional Presentation, Electronic Search & Browse, Creativity and Innovation, Environmental Modeling, High Performance, Multimedia and the Judges’ Special Award.

The Supercomputing Challenge is offered at minimal cost to the participants or the school district. It is sponsored by a partnership of federal laboratories, universities, and businesses. They provide food and lodging for the Kickoff conference during which students and teachers are shown how to use supercomputers, learn programming languages, how to analyze data, write reports and much more. These sponsors also supply time on the supercomputers and lend equipment to schools that need it. Employees of the sponsoring groups conduct training sessions at workshops and advise teams throughout the year.

The Challenge Year opens with a Kickoff at a Conference Center where students attend talks and tutorials on essential knowledge for successful completion of the Challenge. In the middle of the year, Sandia National Laboratories often hosts a tour with talks and demonstrations of technology developed at Sandia. The year culminates at Los Alamos National Laboratory or in Albuquerque in late April with a Project Expo and Judging followed by an Awards Ceremony.

History

The New Mexico High School Supercomputing Challenge was conceived in 1990 by former Los Alamos Laboratory Director Sig Hecker and Tom Thornhill, president of New Mexico Technet Inc., a nonprofit company that in 1985 set up a computer network to link the state’s national laboratories, universities, state government and some private companies. Senator Pete Domenici and John Rollwagen, then chairman and chief executive officer of Cray Research Inc., added their support. In 2001, the Adventures in Supercomputing program formerly housed at Sandia National Laboratories and then at the Albuquerque High Performance Computing Center at the University of New Mexico merged with the former New Mexico High School Supercomputing Challenge to become the New Mexico High School Adventures in Supercomputing Challenge.

In 2002, the words “High School” were dropped from the name as middle school teams had been invited to participate in 2000 and had done well. In the summer of 2005, the name was simplified to the Supercomputing Challenge.

In 2007, the Challenge began collaborating with the middle school Project GUTS, (Growing Up Thinking Scientifically), an NSF grant housed at the Santa Fe Institute. In 2013, the Challenge began collaborating with New Mexico Computer Science for All, an NSF funded program based at the Santa Fe Institute that offers a comprehensive teacher professional development program in Computer Science including a UNM Computer Science course for teachers.