I am a Computer Science Instructor and was involved in a small way with SARA before the surrent SETI project was formed.
Its fun to heat the house with computers rather than the furnace and BOINC is the best way I know of of heating up a puter!
Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home
Mapping the sky is an important step in understanding our universe and a productive way to "race puters".
SETI@home and Astropulse are funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, NASA, and donations from SETI@home volunteers. AstroPulse is funded in part by the NSF through grant AST-0307956.