Invitation to embarrassingly parallel computing

A surprising number of physical systems problems are well suited to "embarrassingly parallel" computations which do not require complicated algorithms or specialized hardware. As faculty and students at small institutions, we are readily incorporating parallel computing in diverse levels of our curricula and are embracing the opportunity to utilize high performance computing to do cutting edge research. We describe three typical examples: spatiotemporal patterns of one-way coupled oscillators, ray-tracing in curved spacetime, and solar escape as a three-body problem.