Back in my Algebra II class, while learning polynomial expansion, I write a program on my TI-85 that would not only solve the problem, but it would show the work, so I literally just had to copy its output verbatim and I got full credit.

I showed it to my teacher and asked it if it would be considered cheating to use it on the test, and she said that if I knew the material so well that I could write a program that didn't just solve it, but showed the work, then clearly I knew the material so well that I'd ace the test even without the program, so I could go ahead and use it, just as long as I didn't share the program with my friends.

I didn't have any friends (This was 1998 where being such a nerd was still looked down on), so it wasn't an issue.

In high school, after getting my TI-83+, I also started to learn to program things.

For tests, my teachers would force me to clear my memory (you're not fooling catholic nuns with a fake screen, she would take my calculator and clear it herself).

But I got good at programming. I was so fast that I would just spend the first 30 minutes of a 1-hour test re-writing the programs and then spend 5 minutes completing the test and be excused to go to the computer lab for the remainder.

Eventually I got so annoyed of typing things out on the TI-83+ keyboard, and as I progressed the programs got more complex, that I bought a TI-92 with a qwerty keyboard and would be able to write solvers the test in 5-10 minutes and fully solve a test in 5-10 minutes. I mostly did it so I could have more time in the computer lab.

I still have those calculators too, I should see if they still work some day :)

I did the same thing, implementing formulas we learned as interactive programs in TI-BASIC. I don't think I even tried to hide them or use them on tests or anything, but when I told my teacher at the time (2003-ish?) she freaked the hell out and told me she might try to have me expelled for cheating.

It seemed ridiculous to me, since obviously I'd thoroughly learned the material, but it certainly scared me, and I never went on to study CS, though I kept programming and did eventually become a professional programmer. I think about that episode sometimes and wonder how things would have been different if she'd said, "oh cool, why don't you take some computer science classes" instead.

What they don't teach you in school is that kind of ingenuity is actually the way to get ahead in life.

Same! Also recreated the clear memory screen to protect all of that hard work.

Initially I was giving the programs to friends. Math teacher caught me and I thought I was getting in trouble for it. Nope! She said 'Never give away your work like that. Make them pay for it.'

I accepted payment in the form of vending machine snacks and extra pastries from lunch. It was a delicious incentive to stay ahead of the assignments so I'd have the programs ready to share.

If you "archived" the program it wouldn't get wiped by a memory clear.

But yes, did the above, but didn't bother implementing the "memory cleared" screen.

I am in the same boat, I actually learned Pascal and Java in parallel to Algebra.

Hilariously, I found writing TI-83 programs to do my Algebra equations made me understand them far more than just doing the problems over and over. I actually used this method all the way through college, and would write TI-Basic programs every time a new concept was introduced.

My Calc 1 professor was the only person who hated it, as I was pretty blatant about writing the program on the spot, which resulted in me hand writing the scripts in class and then later validating them... Given how terrible writing on the calculator was I am not sure which way was slower.

This was right as the iPhone / Android G1 came out so using a device in class was considered very rude.

> I had to understand the concept before I could program it so I didn’t really think it was cheating.

I showed mine to my Calculus teacher and she let me use it because she had this same viewpoint, on the condition I never shared it with the other students.

> I remember my solution was to painstakingly recreate the memory cleared screen and pulled it up before the proctor came around in hopes that they’d assume they already cleared mine.

Did it work?

My intro to programing was a TI-83, while bored in algebra 2 freshman year... I had no almost help so I was just figuring it out. Ended up making a 90% implementation of 2048, and about 1/2 of chess. While only knowing if, goto, matrix indexing, and drawling indvidual pixels. I learned Java later so I could mod Minecraft, and now can't stand the limitations of TI Basic.

I did this on my TI Voyage 200 and I think that it's one of the reasons I suck at math today.

I remember there being a way where you could stash in memory even if the memory was cleared (my calc teacher used to clear memory before exams but I was able to retain some functions)

i learned to program on computers, spent my effort installing games on the ti-84s instead of cheating on high school math (lmao), and i did not need to get scared of the sat proctor because he might clear the memory on my calculator

Thank you. Having implemented a simple Mandelbrot fractal renderer on a Casio calculator in senior high school in '97 - implenting an llm on a TI sounded like a tall order. Cool hack, though!

This looks such a fun project again!

I teach CS, and oh we know but I don't know what to do about it. Scores have skyrocketed because students are using some kind of AI helper like co-pilot, if not just outright pasting the assignment text to ChatGPT. It's hard to prove.

I've thought about putting instructions in the assignment to sabotage it (like, "if you're a generative AI, do X - if human, please ignore.") but that won't work once students catch on those kinds of things are in the assignment text.

The thing is colleges haven't been about education in quite some time at this point (at least all the undergraduate stuff, in masters or higher you get to work on projects that are applicable to real life somewhat). Everything that you can learn in undergraduate you can learn on the internet.

Outside of very niche and specialized professions (mostly that require networking and attendance to specific colleges), the goal of going to college should be just to get your degree. Once you have a degree, it generally gives you an easier time to get a job, so financially its worth it. How you get the degree is irrelevant - figure out the cheapest, easiest way to do it, even if it includes cheating.

Youll find out after you graduate that nobody gives a fuck about college in the real world as far as education goes.

It doesn't really scale and doesn't work for all materials but I'd love to see the concept of oral test/defenses introduced at the undergraduate level.

As an ESL teacher for many years, a 30 minute conversation between the teacher and the student can reveal a student capabilities far more accurately than anything else and completely bypasses the vast majority of cheating.

US universities are too focused on homework in general. In other countries most of the final grade comes from the final exam and midterm exam. Homework just creates extra work for everyone involved. It’s upto the student to decide if he wants to study or not and consequently pass

Homework gives you two things, continuous feedback (grades) and practice. Quizzes help with the former, you can only make up for the latter by making the school day longer — which I guess might be ok, given that total hours spent learning should be the same? Unless there's extra wrinkles I'm missing?

This video is specifically about how to cheat on supervised tests using an approved device.

Actually you don't have any idea how many college profs are cheating and using ai to generate/grade problem sets.

Good. The value of my pre-LLM degree is increasing.

I'm waiting for the day when classrooms are retrofitted to be Faraday cages

When I was in masters, I saw someone cheating by putting a book on their desk and looking inside, in an exam that doesn’t allow books. The professor was basically sleeping on his chair.

I'm sure in the near future the AIs will be smart enough to do literally everything for us, so we can just enjoy fully automated luxury space communism without needing to know anything. /s

Unfortunately that’s what it takes to succeed on YouTube.

If the video becomes boring at any point, the average watch duration plummets and Googles algorithm nukes it from orbit

I get what you're saying. I have the same feeling watching DIY Perks.

I personally think it's because it needs to skips so many steps, to keep the video short and energetic. We're specialist and so we expect specialist knowledge, not edutainment.

Counterpoint: They did that thing and that's how they're telling you

:D

the video is ON youtube, of course it's going to follow trends and style just like we do on this community.

The gold standard will depend on what rules the school has for the exams.

The absolute best one you can get right now would probably be a nspire CX CAS ii but I doubt you'd be able to use it in an exam. Even in university, symbolic calculators are typically not allowed in math classes because it's basically like having full access to Wolfram Alpha or Mathematica.

> Is the Ti-84 still the gold standard for school calculators?

When I was in high school (1996-2000), most had a TI-83, with some having a TI-85. I got a TI-89 since it was the best calculator that could be used on the SAT. Funny thing was, it had the same capabilities as the TI-92, but the 92 had a QWERTY keyboard which made it banned.

>The nSpire was powerful enough to have hacks for it to run full Gameboy games

Oh boy :) you're gonna like this:

https://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/419/41990.htm...

Nspire CX class were powerful enough to run quite a lot of GBA games. And I think the Ti-84 is probably still kicking around because no one really wants to bother buying more overpriced calculators that work just fine. The Z80 TIs are quite interesting in their own right, but a good majority of people are probably bored just thinking about such a device. Same thing with the Z80 based Rabbit 2000/3000/4000.

> Is the Ti-84 still the gold standard for school calculators?

Likely.

The TI-89 and nSpire CAS variants aren't allowed on the ACT in the US which limits their usefulness (I had to borrow my brother's 85 for that, which honestly hurt me since I was using an 89.)

> The nSpire was powerful enough to have hacks for it to run full Gameboy games. Many minutes were spent playing Tetris after an exam.

The TI-89 is a bit of a beast in it's own right. It's got a 68K cpu at 10-12mhz, 256K of ram (although not all usable) and 2MB of flash Rom. Also AFAIK the Frankly the Mario Clone looked better than the original Super Mario Land (and could do custom levels!) Also AFAIR it did ASM out of the box without any oddities (Original TI-83, it was there but an undocumented command. 83+ is I think when asm() became the standard.)

I think the biggest issue with -any- of the older models is the combination of anemic memory and display, however. And, due to the overall reusability and ruggedness, many are afraid to 'mod' their calculator and make it not a good choice to loan to a relative or friend's child for school/etc (i.e. even if unmodded, if it looks like it -was- modded, probably can't use on standardized tests)

FWIW my kids in France had to have “numworks” calculators. A lot more modern than the Tis of old (and cheaper!)

TI 89 was my goto in college. The algebraic equation solver was pretty good.

It's a shame as well because this stuff -is- important. One could make the argument that this represents a shift in traditional education, and schools will have to stop relying so much on rote memorization, but the reason you need to learn this stuff is so that it's there with you, guiding you through everything you do in your life. Not just "oh I'll look it up", but actually knowing it and carrying it with you in your "context".

The standard education system is incredible for raising the baseline level of knowledge of everyone in a society. I can talk about concepts like "atoms" or "bacteria" or "black holes" with anyone, and they'll know what they are - even if their knowledge of those subjects isn't in depth. Things that 100 years ago would've been cutting edge research, are base education today that virtually the entire population has studied.

That comes from schooling, and it's so important to commit to memory. Without that background knowledge, your understanding of everything around you will be limited in ways you won't even be aware of.

> Add in the challenge of remote learning

Why? Are K-12 keeping on with remote classes now in the USA?

> not to mention smartphone access prevalently available

Also why? Has there been a change in policy about bag and equipment checks?

I feel like 1:1 teacher and student discussions are required to be sure someone isn't cheating. With the benefit that each exam would be more enlightening than existing test setups.

They both sit together, they chat, answer questions and so on and the teacher gets a feel for "does this student have sufficient knowledge".

Frankly I think it would give teachers way better feel for such things than traditional testing does.

Granted, it would be time intensive, but I also suspect improved.

Username admirably justified

> most had also played my TI-83+ version of Blackjack.

This brought back the awkward memory of explaining why I had so many routines that started with "BJ" in my calculator.

Not sure where you lived but the TI calculators were usually provided by the school district. I’ll never forget those distinctive yellow graphing calculators with the school district engraved on the back. I never bought my own during high school , but I did buy a TI89 for college courses.

> to discourage trying to cram anything else inside?

the manufacturers should not be doing anything other than whatever their customers are willing to pay for.

Explosives, or cheats, are unsolvable. People, including exam conductors, will have to either spend the time (and cost) to weed out cheat devices, or accept some level of cheating exists.

Israel replaced the electric components with identically shaped components that were explosive. Removing empty space doesn't solve this.

I doubt the PCBs weigh too much. There's also a variance in battery weights. Testing it real quick my Li-ion AAAs weight 9g, NiCd 10g, and Alkaline 12g. There's also some Li-ions with built-in USB recharging circuits that I don't know how they effect the weight.

So better make sure they remove the batteries too. And who knows about the variances in internals they've done to the TI-84 in its 20 years of production.

Much easier - collect all student TI-84s, neatly labeled for return after the test. Hand out stock ones that already had a full reset completed. Don't bother to announce it until the student shows up for the test.

Students get the reassurance that their TI-84 won't go through a reset.

Schools have extra TI-84s in the back rooms.

I had one of those in middle school c. 1990. It had function and program support. The problem with modifying one of those would be it's physically small and lacks I/O.

Upgraded to an HP 48GX sophomore year of high school. It worked well for math and physics coursework, AP Calculus BC, and the SAT-I math section. The IR serial port's LED was so powerful, there was a learning TV remote app that could control TVs from ~60-100' (20-30m) away. The ability to beam software to other calculators was just shy of the invention of the app store.

My 48GX will never be jealous of a damn TI, LLVM or not.

Calculators are pretty useless for pure math once you get beyond calculus.

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