Convincing School to Run Folding@home

[MainStageNews]

So im a senior in High School  and I thought about leaving a little bit of a mark on my school by talking to the principal about running Folding@home on all of our computers at least over the summers. There are plenty of points I could make on how it would benefit the cause, but there is the fact that the electric bill may go up and who knows it may go up so much it wouldn't be possible with the schools budget. So does anyone know of any US grants or tax right offs that would help with some of the cost of it? Im probably going to make an entire power point to show him and who knows maybe i'll impress him and I will be able to present it to the entire school board and all of the schools in the cooperation could do it, but for that to happen I feel some help with the cost of it would be needed. So any ideas?

[SSOB]

A school is a ''non-profit'' organisation , i don't think they have the money for the electricity and also who is gonna take care of it ?

[MainStageNews]

A school is a ''non-profit'' organisation , i don't think they have the money for the electricity and also who is gonna take care of it ?

We have a tech departments also if it came to it I would volunteer my time. Also I know schools do get federal grants to do things and I was thinking they could possibly get one to do this over te summer.

[SSOB]

But who says the people at the tech departments want to ''work'' in the summer , i would first ask all the tech people on your school if they are into it.

[fataldog187]

Depending on how many computers your school has, running them at full bore over the summer could cost quite a bit. What you would need to do is measure one of the PC's with a kill-a-watt or similar device while it's folding and compare that to the normal power draw they would have in summer (presumably turned off?). Multiply it out by the number of machines and the amount of time that you would hope to be folding and then by the cost of the electricity. Then add any additional costs (air conditioning, administration, decreased life expectancy of parts etc) to get a figure for the project.

[MainStageNews]

But who says the people at the tech departments want to ''work'' in the summer , i would first ask all the tech people on your school if they are into it.

If im not mistaken some of the techies stay over the summer to work on stuff anyways. Plus our school went to one on one this year and I know they are really set back on work orders. So that would mean they would be there but I dont know if they would want to be thre. Thats a good idea to talk to the tech department. Thanks

 

Depending on how many computers your school has, running them at full bore over the summer could cost quite a bit. What you would need to do is measure one of the PC's with a kill-a-watt or similar device while it's folding and compare that to the normal power draw they would have in summer (presumably turned off?). Multiply it out by the number of machines and the amount of time that you would hope to be folding and then by the cost of the electricity. Then add any additional costs (air conditioning, administration, decreased life expectancy of parts etc) to get a figure for the project.

I would wanna see if there was any grants available for something like this before I looked up how much the electric bill would run. Because if there arent any grants or tax right offs I really doubt it would be possible.

[warmon6]

It might be possible on a smaller scale such as class vs another school class in F@H (been done before by others) but for a Whole school(s)? 
 
It just wouldn't be possible. 
 
two things will stop you.
 
1.Electricity (as you've already noted).
 
2. security. 
 
 
Most places such as schools have 2 internet ports blocked that F@H needs to run. 80 and 8080 and there blocked for a good reason.
 

Note: Since I've mention this, If anyone is ever having problems F@H via internet issues. You can try using these 2 links to see if your possibly being blocked on those ports. 
 
http://assign.stanford.edu/
 
 
http://assign.stanford.edu:8080/
 
Now you "could" still be blocked on these ports with the program even if the your getting the "OK" on the page though a web browser but most of the time, when it say OK, you're good to go.

 
 
As for grants, Sorry. I dont think there is one that you could use for F@H just because of the nature of it. :(  At least when I looked at doing something similar when i was in school last school year, I couldn't find such a thing and we had a really good base of computers with every student having a laptop. So there was a lot of F@H potential.
 
(It was a new(er) school that opened in 2010 and it was built with computers and early college in mind. http://wbechs.beaufortsc.schoolfusion.us/
) 
 
Now of course that was in South Carolina (Currently living in the Pan Handle of West Virginia) and it was over a year ago, so there might be some stuff in your state that you could use (instead of the federal level) or the feds might have something now but I would have no idea as to where you should look. 
 
So yeah, I dont see this as much of an option for you..... unless your parents happen to be Million or Billionaires and can pay the school(s) electricity for a little while. Maybe you could do that. B)  (We could only wish.)
 
 
All I can really say it is, you'll never know till you try it out but don't hold high expectations.

[MainStageNews]

I figured out how much it would cost per computre to run F@h for a month. The schools computers are only dual core and have little RAM and also no dedicated GPU (these are relevant for most computers) so at load they would not consume more than high 40's in wattage. So lets say each computer is consuming 50 watts of power that would cost $2.0844 USD (with my cities power cost) per computer in a month, obviously multiply that by how many computers my school could do it on and ill have how much more it would cost per month during the summer. Also if there are no grants available for something like this there are 2 ways that the school could get the money to run this during the summer months. One probably the hardest to do but the cheapest for each person is ask everyone in the community do give a small amount of money to run this. I calculated if you have 400 computers running and each person it the community (community size is about 18,330 legal residents) each person would be asked to give just under $0.05 per month a number I feel that nobody would throw a fit over. But if that couldnt happen maybe make it a fee when signing up for the high school there are about 1300-1400 students that go to the school so if we asked each student to give a extra say $3-$4 dollars we could do this during the summer months. Tell me what you guys think...

 

Most places such as schools have 2 internet ports blocked that F@H needs to run. 80 and 8080 and there blocked for a good reason.

 

 

This may be a problem and would be something id have to talk to the tech department about. Maybe during the school year they would need them blocked but during the summer months when school is out they could unblock them? To be honest I dont know what those ports are and also we resently went to one on one (with laptops) too.

[warmon6]

 

This may be a problem and would be something id have to talk to the tech department about. Maybe during the school year they would need them blocked but during the summer months when school is out they could unblock them? To be honest I dont know what those ports are and also we resently went to one on one (with laptops) too.

 

Possibly.... depending on how the school and the School District is setup. 

 

I know that the way that my school was setup, it wouldn't be possible because of all the schools being connected though a massive network (district spand the entier county and it included 5 high schools) and if memory served right, It was connect to the state. 

 

So because of that, the risk of someone hacking in would of allowed someone to change records would of been too much.

 

 

But your school might be different. So this is something you'll have to talk about with your IT staff. 

 

 

As for what the ports are, I would try to explain it but I think wiki explains it better than anything I could every say or type out.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_(computer_networking)

[c.pryor2223]

While your at it install a stealth bitcoin miner and siphon off some dolla billzzzzz 

rofl

but you gotta hook me up my idea

[SSOB]

While your at it install a stealth bitcoin miner and siphon off some dolla billzzzzz 

rofl

but you gotta hook me up my idea

LOL , you'll be probably better of mining home cause i bet the school computers don't have good GFX cards

[MainStageNews]

LOL , you'll be probably better of mining home cause i bet the school computers don't have good GFX cards

More like any gfx cards :P

[XiaoPigs]

It would be great if you actually managed to pull this off but I don't think any school would give 1 student the permission to use every computer in the computer labs for something that doesn't benefit the school or helps students with improving their grades.

[Levent]

if my school did that (which they have like 100 computers and 40 of them is i5 650 based pc's) they would be facing 3-4k $ electricity bill (yup its quite expensive here if i remember right its something like 0.8$ for kw)

[jasgud]

I work as a network engineer for a school division in Canada and am current trialing folding on school equipment. 

What I did is this…

1. Ran a usage study on computers
   1. Turns out average of 40% usage over a full day between all computers
   2. 100% are used at points throughout the day
2. Ran a study on power usage
   1. Power policies are set so that computers are always on between 8am and 5pm
   2. After 5pm they go to sleep if not used for more than 10 min
   3. They wake up periodically for automated after hours work (AV Scans, defrags, etc)
   4. Also compared a full load system vs idle system (prime95 and watt meter on “average” system)
3. Ran Bandwidth Study
4. Compiled data
5. Asked for permission to trial on servers and PCs

 

Now comes the scripting for the clients.  I have to compile an installer MSI that I can push out (and remove) via SCCM.  I also just finished a script that turns off FAH when any user is logged on, and turns it on when someone logs off. 

 

And yes, this is all on my own time.  I feel that this is a great way for me to contribute my talents to help the greater scientific minds make the world a better place. 

 

I will publish it when I am completed so other organizations (and techs) can hop on and contribute in a very easy fashion.

 

Also, look out whaler_99….  Once this is done I just might forget to change the team to our own….  Get ready to have 5000 dual core pcs coming after your #1 spot.  :P

 

 

[Whaler_99]

 

Also, look out whaler_99….  Once this is done I just might forget to change the team to our own….  Get ready to have 5000 dual core pcs coming after your #1 spot.  :P

 

I look forward to any and all challengers! :)

[warmon6]

Also, look out whaler_99….  Once this is done I just might forget to change the team to our own….  Get ready to have 5000 dual core pcs coming after your #1 spot.  :P

 

Talking like that? I think I made a wrong turn and hit [H]ardform.  :lol:

 

 

Well then, 

 

 

[Whaler_99]

Dude! Where do you find all those emoticons? :D

[warmon6]

Years of observing other forums. Mainly [H]ardforum.  :ph34r:

 

 

http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1039835802&postcount=401