• Maestro
      link
      fedilink
      882 months ago

      Yes, but the kids buying the modded devices may not be

    • @Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      802 months ago

      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.

      • @Khanzarate@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        442 months ago

        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.

          • @piecat@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            18
            edit-2
            2 months ago

            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.

          • @sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone
            link
            fedilink
            English
            62 months ago

            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

            • @SomeoneSomewhere@lemmy.nz
              link
              fedilink
              English
              12 months ago

              I don’t remember if they fully closed the loopholes, but there are inputs that programs cannot catch unless you actually replace the OS.

              • @sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone
                link
                fedilink
                English
                12 months ago

                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.

        • @thejml@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          22 months ago

          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.

        • @UNY0N@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          12 months ago

          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.

      • @linearchaos@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        172 months ago

        I could never remember the formula to calculate compound interest.

        But I had no trouble writing a for loop.

          • @linearchaos@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            12 months ago

            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.

            • @VintageGenious@sh.itjust.works
              link
              fedilink
              English
              52 months ago

              The use of for makes sense.

              k=0; for (i=0; i<n; i++) k=k+f(i); is the same as k=\sum_{i=0}^{n-1} f(i)

              and

              k=1; for (i=0; i<n; i++) k=k*f(i); is the same as k=\prod_{i=0}^{n-1} f(i)

              In our case, f(i)=1+r and k=1; for (i=0; i<n; i++) k*(1+r); is the same as k=\prod_{i=0}^{n-1} (1+r) = (1+r)^n

              All of that just to say that exponentiation is an iteration of multiplication, the same way that multiplication is an iteration of addition

        • @BluesF@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          22 months ago

          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.

      • @TheEighthDoctor@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        42 months ago

        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

    • @roofuskit@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      92 months ago

      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.

  • Bobby Turkalino
    link
    fedilink
    English
    862 months ago

    Ok but calculators are only allowed in math class and if there’s one thing language models suck at, it’s doing basic math. Forget anything at least as complicated as algebra

      • @Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        32 months ago

        Dude, I was wondering why someone hadn’t done this the moment they discovered Ai was terrible at math. I would have imagine the crowds who deal with both would have some overlap at least.

    • @OozingPositron@feddit.cl
      link
      fedilink
      English
      122 months ago

      For me they weren’t allowed in Calc I, II, III, Alg I, II and Differential equations. Every other class pretty much required it.

      if there’s one thing language models suck at, it’s doing basic math.

      If you’re using a GPT 3.5 turbo level models, sure. Synthetic data is perfect for teaching LLMs, o1 will be good enough up to Calc III IMO, maybe even better.

      The only thing I don’t like about this is that it uses a TI, yikes.

      • @jacksilver@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        102 months ago

        LLMs do suck at math, if you look into it, the o1 models actually escape the LLM output and write a python function to calculate the output, I’ve been able to break their math functions by asking for functions that use math not in the standard Python library.

        I know someone also wrote a wolfram integration to help solve LLMs math problems.

        • @0ops@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          32 months ago

          Wow that’s really clever actually. Basically using the library as digital scratch paper

          • @Smokeydope@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            1
            edit-2
            2 months ago

            Thanks for sharing, knew him from some numberphile vids cool to see they have a mastadon account. Good to know that LLMs are crawling from “incompentent graduate” to “mediocre graduate”. Which basically means its already smarter than most people for many kinds of reasoning task.

            I’m not a big fan of the way the guy speaks though, as is common for super intelligent academic types they have to use overly complicated wording to formally describe even the most basic opinions while mixing in hints of inflated ego and intellectual superiority. He should start experimenting with having o-1 as his editor and summarize his toots.

      • @skulkingaround@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        82 months ago

        They let us use them for all my college math classes.

        They really don’t help much at all if you don’t understand the math, and if you do understand, you don’t need the calculator most of the time.

        • @cows_are_underrated@feddit.org
          link
          fedilink
          English
          22 months ago

          Don’t know about university math, but this applied to a lot of the stuff in my last years of school. Since we always had a part where you were required to solve everything without a calculator you had to be able to do everything without it. For algebra and Calculus it just meant that you were able to do the math more efficiently. For statistics the calculator was basically useless, since it didnt help you if you didnt knew what you had to do, what was basically the only hard part of it.

        • @toddestan@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          2
          edit-2
          2 months ago

          That’s also what my upper level math courses were like in college. In high school and the first couple of years of college I got good use out of my graphing calculator, but after that I reached the point where all of its advanced features were no longer useful. I just ended up leaving it at home and brought my old TI-30 Solar for class for the occasional time I had to crunch some actual numbers.

      • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️
        link
        fedilink
        English
        52 months ago

        TI, yikes.

        Yeah, well, TI has spent bucketloads of money bribing textbook publishers to only include instruction for their specific models so they are now the de facto standard in American schools. This is apparently legal.

        Anyway, team Casio represent.

      • @TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        32 months ago

        You have an option not to take science?

        Damn. Where I live the three main sciences were mandatory and they were all separate subjects

      • Bobby Turkalino
        link
        fedilink
        English
        1
        edit-2
        2 months ago

        You knew what I meant but chose to leave a Reddit-ass comment anyway

    • @GBU_28@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      22 months ago

      They’re great at multiple choice when they’ve seen the test versions

  • @nutsack@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    402 months ago

    I used to store formulas in basic programs in my ti84 but they were never useful because I didn’t need help memorizig formulas

    • WorseDoughnut 🍩
      link
      fedilink
      English
      12 months ago

      I wrote one that printed a fake “memory cleared” screen so I could keep my stored stuff saved even if the protectors wanted to see us wipe the storage.

    • Fubarberry
      link
      fedilink
      English
      612 months ago

      They added wifi with a extra circuit board hidden inside the calculator case. It’s connected to the calculators communication port, and pretends to be another calculator. So they can use the calculator’s built in “send” function to send variables/text/etc to the hidden card, which then uses it’s internet connection to look up answers and send the results back.

  • @finitebanjo@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    332 months ago

    “ChatGPT what is the formula for Work Done in an enclosed system expressed as a triple integral?”

    “42”

    “Ok cool ty.”

      • @finitebanjo@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        3
        edit-2
        2 months ago

        Yeah but at least work on an enclosed system is always zero. Idk why but I always chuckle about that.

        Sure, you can prove it in like 4 to 8 lines of multivariate calculus, but its always gonna be 0.

  • TimeSquirrel
    link
    fedilink
    182 months ago

    Yeah, nobody in class is going to suspect the kid with the arduino-type science project mess of wires duct taped to their calculator.

    For those too lazy to read, that’s how this works. An external micro controller talks to the calc through the IO port, and does the Wifi stuff, acting as a middleman.

    Edit: I did not see the video.

  • bitwolf
    link
    fedilink
    English
    152 months ago

    Not anymore since it’s spreading news instead of remaining on YouTube

    • umami_wasabi
      link
      fedilink
      English
      42 months ago

      I wonder what can counter this except banning it, or provide calculators to students instead of using their own.

  • partial_accumen
    link
    fedilink
    English
    112 months ago

    Its been quite a while since I’ve taken a proctored exam, but then all the proctors would clear all the memory on your calc before they’d let you use it for test. Is that not the case anymore?

    • @Broken_Monitor@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      12
      edit-2
      2 months ago

      Depends on the exam. Some don’t even allow programmable calcs because they don’t want to deal with possible shit like this. I have already seen a certification exam where they provide the calculators as well.

    • umami_wasabi
      link
      fedilink
      English
      7
      edit-2
      2 months ago

      The article said it can be download “on demand” so that might make the clearing pointless.

        • umami_wasabi
          link
          fedilink
          English
          12 months ago

          Or use a dongle to lock the calc in test mode, where unlock needs a passcode sent from it.

    • @bandwidthcrisis@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      42 months ago

      The launcher program can be downloaded on-demand, avoiding detection if a teacher inspects or clears the calculator’s memory

      If I understood it correctly, the Wi-Fi module appears as a standard calculator-to-calculator interface, so built-in commands can install the cheat apps at any time.

  • CrimeDad
    link
    fedilink
    English
    72 months ago

    Better than plastic explosives and shrapnel.

  • Synapse
    link
    fedilink
    English
    62 months ago

    Bring your calculator to the Spanish exam. Trust me, this plan is flawless.

  • @spyd3r@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    6
    edit-2
    2 months ago

    Utilizing the tools available to you to solve problems is not cheating, its resourcefulness, and using your brain. Which is of course frowned upon in schools that exist to churn out mindless drones for corporate enslavement.

  • umami_wasabi
    link
    fedilink
    English
    5
    edit-2
    2 months ago

    What would happen if now plug in another calculator? AFAIK that only a P2P connection and never meant for >2 parties.