Need a new engineering rig: Enter the EXRRIG project! Updates from CANSAT.

Man, my family's Dell computer is not cutting it. Its performs alright for normal applications, but running games or engineering software would just make the Dual Core (not Core 2 Duo) CPU go through the roof and the fan go on overdrive! It's also not upgrade-friendly.

My last major purchases were on HDD's and Memory RAM. I think by the end of this year, I need my very own rig at home (my laptop will suffice for university work), for "specific" purposes.

I'll designate it Project EXRRIG (Engineering and eXperimental Research RIG)

Roles
As you can see, this is a more engineering computer. It'll serve as a platform for most of my engineering research as well as home projects (such as the Home Solar Project). It'll also serve as a start for another possible home project, something related to Home automation. Whenever I'm bored, I can chill out with some games too ;)

Hardware Specs
- Low power consumption
- Decent enough performance to run heavy engineering applications (and games)
- Modular and easy to upgrade
- Multiple HDD (but not in RAID configuration)
- Lots of RAM to take advantage of 64bit applications
- Lots of I/O ports

Software Specs
- Multiple OS:
---Windows XP,Vista
---Fedora, Ubuntu, CAELinux, DSL and LFS
-Mostly free and open source applications. I've found loads of free engineering applications.
-Non OSS:
---MATLAB (until Scilab ups its ante)

Cost
I'll try not to spend too much. The aim is to fulfill the specifications listed above, so I certainly would not mind using second hand components. Soon I'll try listing an estimated price from current prices.

There are a few things to keep in mind: Performance, Power and Cost. At the moment, cost and power will factor more than performance because I want to make sure some kind of computer can actually be bought within my budget, and that it won't consume too much power. The ease of upgrading will reduce cost over the long run (which isnt that long in computing term, but oh well).


Yesterday the IIUM CanSat team presented our PDR to Angkasa, held at the National Planetarium. It went alright, but the judges were still quick to point out the feasiblity of our implementations. Even my imaging module wasnt spared, but hopefully with persistence we can over come the issues. The Critical Design Review submission is slated to be near mid October.. so the period between now and then is super important! I'm a bit worried though, since we'll be having final exams and all :(

Oh, check out my design for the Crazy Engineers T-Shirt competition!

A 100% Inkscape implemenation ;) Its my only entry, though. Maybe I'll do one more this weekend when I'm free. Lots of other CEans submitted kick ass entries! I'll try to develop this specific one for a potential CE Logo maybe.