Bloomfield students build supercomputer
It's been the talk of Bloomfield High School over the last few months: a super-computer, built and designed by students using skills they learned in class.
NORTH BLOOMFIELD, Ohio - It's been the talk of Bloomfield High School over the last few months: a super-computer, built and designed by students using skills they learned in class.
Walk into Mr. Schnurrenberger's classroom and you'll see a futuristic-looking machine filled with tubes and bright lights.
"My principal walked in and he was like. 'Am I in front of a flux capacitor or something?'," said senior Cameron Parke.
It started out as part of an annual project in the Advanced Computer class but clearly took that task to the next level.
"Being a small school, we have a little more money to work with and it makes projects like this possible," said teacher David Schnurrenberger.
Cameron Parke, who built about 20 computers before he even got to high school, saw an opportunity to do something big.
"Each student gets $500 to build their own computer if they want, or they could team up and combine their funds. So what we did was we pretty much just combined my funds, and everyone's like 'Alright Cameron, head up the biggest project you've ever done'," said Parke.
Piece by piece, it started coming together. A machine with an antifreeze cooling system and nine fans.
"If you stick your hands down into the chassis here it feels like a refrigerator," said Parke.
It took about a month and a half to assemble.
"I worked on it in class. I worked on it in classes I should've been in and I worked on it outside of school," said Parke. "Thank you, teachers, for allowing me to do that."
The finished product can edit 4K quality video and graphics and do just about anything else you want.
One of the best parts about it; this isn't going anywhere. It'll be here for the school to use long after he graduates.
"It's crazy. I wish I could take it home. I wish I could take it to college with me. I think it's a statue for what we can accomplish here at Bloomfield," said Parke.
It's also a little bit of eye candy for any future tech wizards in the years to come.
"One of the good things with the lights and the looks and all that is it does attract students. It's the first thing they see, they start asking about it. They want to build their own," said Schnurrenberger.
Although, topping this one won't be easy.
As for Parke, he's heading to Bowling Green in the fall in the Army ROTC program. He's not majoring in computers, though. Instead, he wants to go for business and marketing and potentially run his own "smart home" business down the road.
