The Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (or BOINC) is a way for you to get involved on global research projects. You install a client and then the slack time of your particular machine is used in the networked task of crunching numbers. You may have heard of SETI@home which is a collaborative effort to analyse radio telescope data in the search for extra-terrestrial life.

Gus over at PiMyLifeUp has written a great, current tutorial on installing and configuring the BOINC client. You can read it here or view a video below:

It’s a great chance to get involved in science. So, if you’ve got a spare Pi, why not leave it plugged in and collaborating with the other 400,000 BOINC users?