In my Google feed I received a post about a project that said I could use my raspberry pi to help fight COVID-19 with the BOINC project. I was interested.
First Found BOINC
Once I read about the BOINC project (that then supports a variety of projects) I wanted to support it and since I have a few Raspberry Pis I was excited to get it installed.
BOINC is very easy to install you can find it on any forum now for example, here. After I installed BOINC I added the project Rosetta@Home which is the one that has COVID-19 simulations; more information can be found here.
After you add the project the GUI will let you know that it is communicating with the server then it will say either, its downloading tasks or “Nothing to do”. On my raspberry pi 3b I got the latter.
Realized I needed a Raspberry Pi 4
For some reason the notifications on the raspberry pi didn’t display correctly so I was started looking at the forums which are very helpful for troubleshooting.
Other Computing Platforms
Not being able to use my older raspberry pis wouldn’t stop me from helping. I have a few extra (old) computers that I thought I could use. Setting up the computers was very quick with their easy to use software.
There was even an old phone I had lying around that I set up with BOINC since Rosetta@Home supports Android platforms. After a week of computing for the project I earned a 25% badge. Hopefully the computation results help researchers at Washington University develop some useful drugs for COVID-19. Also I hope you’ll help too.
Projects for Raspberry Pi 3
After getting all the platforms that I have setup and running (including my wife’s phone). I thought maybe my Raspberry Pi could help with other projects. I found Einstein@Home for finding pulsars. Join BOINC!
