The D20 Duct Tape Server(aka the D20TS)

For our third all-duct-tape server, Team Boom Tape stepped way outside the box and challenged ourselves with making a 20-sided icosahedron (the shape of D20 dice).

The server case was built entirely from 22(!) rolls of gray, red, translucent Nashua duct tape. Seven people worked on the duct tape structure over eight build sessions. A total of around 127 manhours went into the construction of the server.

It houses these computer components:

* Pentium P4 3.0 GHz
* Intel SFF Motherboard
* 2GB DDR2 RAM
* 80GB SATA HDD
* 475W PSU
* 1 120mm LED fan (rear)
* 1 92mm fan (cpu)
* a USB powered custom arduino controller for lighting

The D20TS will be on server row at MillionManLan 9, July 8-11th 2010. It will host a Ventrilo server, a web server, an FTP server, and game servers for Team Fortress, Left 4 Dead 2, and Armagetron. A video stream will also come from the D20TS which will broadcast on ustream.tv through the event.

Building the D20TS

An undertaking of epic proportions! Construction for our third generation server took place over eight build sessions in the course of a week and a half. Seven members of Team Boom Tape pulled together to make our adhesive dream become reality.
Here are shots throughout the process:

DTS 2 & 2.5 Tear Down

The time finally came to dismantle our second Duct Tape Server and reclaim its components for a new build. We pulled the case apart bit by bit to review the effects of gravity, time, and transit. It's hexagonal shape stood up remarkably well over the past 2 years (remarkably well considering it's all just TAPE).

DTS 2.5

The case of DTS II was still structurally sound after over a year (!), so we changed most of the internal components, reloaded the OS, and dubbed this DTS 2.5. Here's what this incarnation has under the hood:

• Pentium P4 3.0 GHz
• Intel SFF Motherboard
• 2GB DDR2 RAM
• 120GB SATA HDD
• 475W PSU
• CDROM
• 1 120mm LED fan (front)
• 1 80mm LED fan (rear)
• 1 92mm fan (side)

The OS was an optimized XP kernal and a Blackbox shell which had a footprint under 100MB.

DTS 2.5 was on server row at MillionManLan 8, July 9-12th 2009. It hosted a dedicated 24 person Team Fortress 2 server, a dedicated Left 4 Dead server, an Armagetron AD server, and an FTP server.