this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2024
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If a kid is smart enough to figure this out and make it work for them, they're gonna be fine...
Yes, but the kids buying the modded devices may not be
good. they will learn not to buy their way out of a problem at least.
Back when we were doing quadratic equations; I wrote a program on my TI-84 that would ask which parts of the equation you already had, and would fill in the rest for you.
My teacher liked it so much he bought a transfer cable for those calculators so he could get a copy for himself. Then used to to grade tests.
I did the same thing. It was allowed in general, with the correct thought, "if you can code it yourself, you know the content"
I had another "program" that would fail to run but that's because I wrote notes into it. Doubt that was allowed.
Here in NZ they do a factory reset on your calculator at the start of every exam.
Oh I would have been so pissed. I was programming on my calculator 24/7 instead of my classes.
I wrote a sudoku "editor"
I put that in quotes because I had a grid that could be navigated, arrows moved, storing the numbers, had number entry down. And when it was time to implement the solver, I learned the hard way what p vs np is.
They did that here too, but students would use a cheat program that made it look like teachers were resetting it, but really the memory was safe
I don't remember if they fully closed the loopholes, but there are inputs that programs cannot catch unless you actually replace the OS.
My memory is pretty hazy but the cheat application emulated the process that teachers used to do a system reset.
Iirc, it let you press menu, select reset, confirm, and showed the (fake) confirmation screen.
Also IIRC, you had to install it from Mirage OS, which I don't think was an OS (?) but rather an app that everyone had to play games from.
I did that but made it return success before it got to the notes. You had to scroll to get to the notes, but it looked innocuous before that.
Oh god I remember doing that too. Those "programs" were the best. I even mad sure to make the code long, so that even if someone thought to take a look at the code they would have to scroll for a while to find the notes.
I could never remember the formula to calculate compound interest.
But I had no trouble writing a for loop.
K•(1+r)^n
I would just rebuild something in my head like this every time.
While i < n; k=k+(k*r); i++;
You'd think I could remember k(1+r)^n but when you posted, it looked as alien as it felt decades ago.
The use of for makes sense.
k=0; for (i=0; i<n; i++) k=k+f(i);is the same ask=\sum_{i=0}^{n-1} f(i)and
k=1; for (i=0; i<n; i++) k=k*f(i);is the same ask=\prod_{i=0}^{n-1} f(i)In our case,
f(i)=1+randk=1; for (i=0; i<n; i++) k*(1+r);is the same ask=\prod_{i=0}^{n-1} (1+r) = (1+r)^nAll of that just to say that exponentiation is an iteration of multiplication, the same way that multiplication is an iteration of addition
What always annoyed me was having to draw charts by hand. Just let me put the data in a computer for god's sake, the rest of the working is there... I did actually write a python function for one of my assignments which was fine, but they told me not to do it for the exam.
I made one to decompose polynomials it was very good because it showed all the steps it was literally just copy what's on the calc to the page
So you didn't get the transfer cable with your calculator? Smells fishy
Issued by the school; I never owned it.
you can code directly on the device, it's just a PAIN to do compared to moving the files over
Can confirm, as someone who spent multiple study halls trying to program a top down shooter on his calculator
As someone who was a kid who would do things like this to avoid putting in the work, no this kid will probably not be fine.