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Ask Slashdot: What To Do With Found Calculators?
New submitter Covalent writes "I'm a science teacher and have, over the years, accumulated a number of lost graphing calculators (mostly TI-83s). After trying to locate the owners, I have given up and have been loaning them out to students as needed. I want to something more nerd-worthy with them, though. I would feel wrong for selling them. What is the best use for bunch of old calculators?"
You're loaning them to the needy. Doing good can be nerdy too.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
Send one to Paul Ryan - he could do with help with his math
I think that loaning them out to needy students is the best possible use for them. Don't change a thing!
Beowulf Cluster
I also have a number of graphing calculators. That number being 1. How many is 'a number'! If its a complex or irrational number, your post would be more interesting. Otherwise, apart from some kind of modern art installation, the calculator lending library you already have seems like a good answer.
Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of these!
There are plenty of kids out there whose parents won't justify spending $100 on anything educational, so just keep those calculators on hand in your classroom and loan them out to students who need them. In doing so, you're giving underprivileged kids the same resources that more well-off children always have at their disposal, and hopefully by having the same tools as their peers, you can keep them engaged, interested, and learning.
That's nerd-worthy to me.
CALCnet allows networking of TI-83 and similar calculators with relatively simple external hardware.
With that detail out of the way, you are free to implement a display-wall and/or the most powerful z80 cluster computer in the known universe.
Extra credit, of course, will be awarded if you succeed in writing an xorg driver that can treat an MxN array of networked calculators as a greyscale display of appropriate resolution.
Loaning is probably OK, but before you donate or otherwise give up possession, check the rules.
Have gnu, will travel.
I don't know about your school, but in every one of my middle school and high school math classes, students always needed more loaner calculators than they had. (my college banned calculators from math classes, which didn't really hurt since all I took was Calc II).
If you find that students are consistently being responsible and bringing their own, I suggest donating them to another school, so they can get some use from them.
There's not really anything interesting you can do with them - they aren't powerful enough to do anything other than do simple math, or perhaps play a mediocre Wolfenstein clone on (yes, it's real - google "ti-83 doom app"). The displays are shit, the processor is pathetic, and the input mechanism is severely lacking.
Yup.. It's about the same as if I had asked "I get old computer stuff abandon with me. What should I do with it?" . I give it to people who want or need it.
In other industries, there is a standard 90 day storage.. After that, they can do with it as if it is their own. If it's legally titled stuff (like a car), you have to request a court ordered transfer of ownership. Something like a calculator? If the owner didn't come get it, it's yours.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
If you have more calculators than you need for your own lending program, and the other math teachers (if any) at your school are also adequately equipped, then share them with other schools in your area. There's probably a classroom not too far down the road - perhaps across the tracks? - where they don't have a large number of kids carelessly abandoning valuable electronics.
~Idarubicin
Donate them to local Charities or over seas charities.
The Lend them out program you're doing works well also.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
I'd say give them to students that look like they have need for them and no way to get one, though the idea of just using them in-class is pretty good. Maybe make a prize out of it?
Key in 5,318,008, turn the calculator upside down, then smile with fifth grade satisfaction.
I dunno, how about checking what the latest nerd hipster chic is at BoingBoing and modifying the calculator accordingly?
Let's see ...
Cover in leather
Paint to look like R2D2
Haunted Mansion theme.
Yeah, no shortage of nerd things to do to old crap.
I'd avoid using tapeworms. But steam punk might still be acceptable in some circles.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Link them together and use them to mine bitcoins. You might need to pay a few students to type in the numbers, but you will be richly rewarded.
Please keep doing what you're doing. I had my graphing calculator stolen in high school, and was not happy about having to shell out the cash for a new one. I had a test later that day that required one, so I went to the head of the department and she reached into a box marked "graduated" and pulled one out. She put every found calculator that came her way into a box labelled with that year. Four years later she moved it into the graduated box, understanding that the student had since left and would not be claiming their lost property. She simply handed me one and said not to worry about it. A decade later I still use it.
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
Give away?
Sell them. You're getting paid about 1/4 of what you're worth. Sell 'em.
You could give them to needy students, each who can't afford one but still has a new Nintendo DS, of you could pocket some cash and take your significant-other out to dinner. If you ever get a night off from grading papers or writing lesson plans.
:wq
Red Dwarf, "The Last Day"
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
It turns on instantly, does what it's supposed to do correctly the same way each time, and turns off instantly. I have a TI-83 on my desk at all times. The user interface can't be beat either.
Mostly random stuff.
As a matter of objective fact, the nerdiest thing you can do with a TI-83 is to write assembly programs for it on your PC, send them to the calculator through the proprietary* cable (if you've got one) and run them. If you don't have time to do it then maybe you have a student who has time. Challenge your students to write a simple program that draws something on the screen!
*It goes without saying that it would be nerdier if you built your own cable and used that.
A story I've kept for years as inspiration. A hundred points to anyone who can find the source:
One of the best parts of high school was when my math teacher took a spare TI-83 and let me use it exclusively for the whole semester, under specific terms: Do something awesome with it, and he'd let me skip my final.
Three weeks later, I'd written a small text adventure. A few weeks after that, I had a trading game with a complex market. By the end of the year, I had turned that same trading game into a graphical one, where the goal was to sail around the world buying low and selling high. The more money you had, the more likely you were to be attacked, which also took place in stunning 1-bit color graphics. The game's actions were controlled through a menu system, which was also used to launch the game (as opposed to the various tools I'd written to do my homework for me).
He was impressed, and I was inspired. When I started applying to colleges, I finally knew what major I wanted: computer science.
Keep loaning out those calculators. A student might need one, and not even realize it.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Being Junk is debatable. What matters is they retail for $100 and up, and scores of high school math courses require them. My Algebra II class (in 1998) might as well have been retitled to "How to use your TI-83 calculator" Class tutorials often worked buttonpress by buttonpress. I lost 3 of them over the course of my high school career (two were stolen from my bookbag), and this was certainly no fun for my parents.
Yes, I realize the older models sell for cheap on ebay. I purchased my 3rd this way and still have it (I suspect it was stolen too), but when you've got an assignment due tomorrow, and even if you get an extension from the teacher, you risk falling behind, so you often bite your lip and pay Best Buy prices.
I wish they weren't so expensive. They shouldn't be. With the exception of some tiny crappy memory expansions, they haven't changed in like 20 years, yet the price tag has only gone up. I'd love to see some project like OLPC destroy this monopoly.
Yes it can. See: HP 48GX/SX.
With calculators, appearance is everything. Even small nicks and scratches will knock down the price to a tiny fraction, and because these were both forgotten by careless students and loaned out to others, it's fairly certain that they're not in great or even very good condition, and will lack manuals and boxes.
So they'll be worth very little.
Note: Certain models are rare, and can be worth more. If you have a HP-10C or TI-78 in the collection, you can get good offers, even if not in perfect condition. If you find a TI-88, we're talking thousands.
It's interesting and disconcerting people can't figure anything out on their own and feel the need to ask for help online or Google answers. If the OP doesn't know what to do with found calculators yet the OP works in a school where students would benefit from these calculators, I think we're in trouble. Next time I'm sleepy or hungry and don't know what to do about it I'm going to post a /. article and ask everyone.
Perhaps its a matter of "whats the best course of action." He knows how to sell them. He knows how to give them away. He knows how to throw them out. He is looking for an out of the box solution, or third party moral justification for any of these actions.
--- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
In some school districts, it's hard to know what's "right." My last day as a sub for my local district, some 6th grader took a swipe at me from behind so I walked him down to the principal's office and told him how lucky he was that I wasn't going to press charges right then. Momma came down a little later and discussed the incident with the principal, who then called me down to the office as well. The discussion wasn't about her son's behavior: I got reprimanded for "shoving" the little turd down the hall. It's true that when I got out of my chair, after the swipe, I moved him toward the door, but it wasn't like I knocked him down. I've coach wrestling for years and that little shit was lucky I didn't rip his head off in stride.
Did I mention it was my last day there as a sub? They didn't fire me; I took my name off their list.
It sounded to me like he was less interested in providing them to his students as a "calculator" and more interested in using them for either personal or classroom geeky type things. Things like integrating them into a robotics device.
That said, I personally feel that the best use they could have would be in the hands of a child whose parents cannot afford to purchase a calculator.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Every student in my wife's 2nd grade class qualifies for the free and reduced lunch program, which puts them all at or below the poverty level. And they all seem to have Nintendo DS's.
All I'm saying is, teachers need to stop using their personal resources in the classroom. As long as they're willing to give things to the students, the school system will continue to encourage them to do so. Let the parents figure out how to provide calculators for their children. That's not the teacher's responsibility.
Your posts are insightful. You don't need to be an asshole.
:wq
Oh, and obigatory xkcd.
For those few /.ers unaware:
http://www.hpmuseum.org/hp48s.htm
"Nobody poor should ever get to enjoy themselves."
Look, I understand prioroty spending and budgeting, but you have to look at the costs and the humanitarian factor here.
A DS will cost what, $150? Maybe it's a birthday present. I know that a fair number of the families at my kids' school don't get breakfast every day, and at Gift Day time, it gets worse. Why? The families can afford food and clothing to get by, but then when you add in $X for presents, it doesn't work out so well. That's where hampers can come in. They don't have to splurge on the food for the feast, it takes the pressure off the food bill for a couple of weeks, and suddenly they've got a couple hundred for presents.
Maybe the kid's got a paper route and works their butt off to pay their phone bill / buy DS games. I had a paper route when I was a kid.
Now, let's look at the cost of lunches. It's going to run, let's say, $2.50 for a lunch for the kids. If the parents are below the poverty level (which you would if you're making min. wage) that lets you take that $2.50 a day and spend it on other things. Clothes. Bling. That's about 3 months worth of subsidized lunches for a DS. (I know, you're all like "THATS MY TAX MONEY I DONT USE GOVT MONEY AT ALL" when you're drinking EPA-approved water, driving on DOT roads approved by a PE, in a car regulated by the NHTSA, and all while you're protected by the police, fire department, and military. But other than that, no tax dollars, right?)
And bling is fucking important when you're in high school.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
TI holds a monopoly thanks to their sole approval with Educational Testing Service for use on the ACT and SAT exams.
Any calculator would be fine, TI and ETS would have you believe that anything else would be a cheating device.
That's why they go to such ridiculous lengths to make them difficult to hack (encrypted loaders, secret keys, etc).
Mission: To provide products that consume time and energy as entertainingly as permitted by the laws of thermodynamics.
I still thing the 15C was the best calculator ever made -- with the added numerical excellence from the god of FP math William Kahan.
Ian Ameline
Maybe make a prize out of it?
Make a prize fight out of it. Sure to be much more entertaining.
It's worse than that. In Edmonton, a teacher was suspended for giving zeros for assignments that were never handed in. Apparently, they are only supposed to receive an "Incomplete" mark, and if they never hand it in, it just doesn't count on their average for the year. I believe eventually he lost his job, mostly because he decided to fight the school in court (good for him). It's hard to believe how bad the policies have become in schools lately.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
$150? That'd be a 3DS. A new DS is $100 from Best Buy. $70 if you get a refurbished one. Go down to GameStop, and you can get a used one for even less. Hit a pawn shop or ebay, and you can go even lower. I'd be willing to bet that Goodwill and similar places have some for sale fairly cheaply as well.
And don't forget, even the poor have relatives. Mom & Dad may be too proud to take money from their parents or siblings, but you can bet the kids won't mind getting a shiny new electronic toy for a birthday or Christmas from their aunt, uncle, or grandparent. And going back to the used bit above, a lot of younger kids get consoles and such as hand-me-downs from an older brother or sister in high school or college... who may have bought it with their own money, from their own job.
My family wasn't poverty-level poor when I was a kid, but we were poor... and quite a few of the nicer toys that I got came from my oldest brother, who went into the Navy right out of high school, and was flush with cash for a few years, until he decided to move off-base.
Donate them to some poor schools in a third world country.
Excellent idea! Mod up! Ship a boxful (with batteries) of them to a needy school system elsewhere in the world. It might be life changing technology for some deserving minds, ones that they might not ever be able to get their hands on otherwise. An excellent use of the "Pass It On" belief.
Spoken like a true naive right-wing American who wants desperately to believe that poverty is the result of some moral failing on the part of the poor, and therefore can never touch them or their loved ones.
Sorry, but the world doesn't work that way.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Every student in my wife's 2nd grade class qualifies for the free and reduced lunch program, which puts them all at or below the poverty level. And they all seem to have Nintendo DS's.
So all we really need is a graphic calculator cartridge for the DS.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
All kidding aside, like (mostly) everyone else, I recommend either holding on to them to use as loaners in the classroom, or give them away. Try to remember if you were in a situation (temporarily or even long term) where you didn't have a calculator for whatever reason in class (especially as a kid). Wouldn't this have made you feel better?
http://hackaday.com/tag/ti-83/
http://www.ticalc.org/basics/calculators/index.html
http://www.ticalc.org/hardware/cables/serial.html
http://education.ti.com/guidebooks/sdk/83p/sdk83pguide.pdf
http://sami.ticalc.org/irlink/e_hard.htm
http://smallrobot.bizland.com/Instructions.pdf
http://www.mathinscience.info/public/mathbots_challenge/mathbot_chall_lesson.htm
http://www.razorrobotics.com/knowledge/?title=TI_Connect
http://www.free-scientific-calculator.com/texas-instruments-graph-link-connectivity-kit/
http://blog.makezine.com/2006/02/19/how-to-connect-a-ti83-to/
I could have never afforded a TI graphing calculator in high school, and it was required for Calculus, so the school gave them out akin to a text book. You had your serial number recorded and if you lost it, you didn't graduate until you paid for it. The things I was able to learn and do punching on that thing day in and out were infinitely valuable. I was even able to sign out a second one so that I didn't have to purge the programs I made for class. If there is such an excess, giving them to people who really can use them is a great idea
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
imagine a beowulf cluster of calculators! fwiw I still use my ti-92, 15 years later.
My 48G still sits within arm's reach. And I'm a lawyer now, so I mostly just use it for simple arithmetic these days. Totally unbeatable. (Though every time I look at it, I curse Carly Fiorina.)
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
So all we really need is a graphic calculator cartridge for the DS.
Done, over half a decade ago. http://blog.davr.org/2006/10/15/ds85-release-2/
You do need a flash cart, though. But those are cheap these days.
sudo eat my shorts
Give away?
Sell them. You're getting paid about 1/4 of what you're worth. Sell 'em.
You could give them to needy students, each who can't afford one but still has a new Nintendo DS, of you could pocket some cash and take your significant-other out to dinner. If you ever get a night off from grading papers or writing lesson plans.
Whatever floats your boat...
I gave away a ton of my stuff last week... not because it had no resale value, but just because it's just petty and beneath me to grub around after chump change for it.
I never sell anything... I give it away, or throw it away. I think people who actually take the time to sell their used crap are kind of pathetic, really. Just give it to someone who needs it and get on with your life.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Best idea so far. The TI-83 is a good enough graphing calculator for most. I can't imagine the sticker shock parents in low income homes get when their kid says we need a $100+ calculator. Also how many kids are avoiding higher level math because their household can't afford a calculator? Also the used market for graphing calculators dries up at the beginning of the school year.
I was on a field trip school field trip(winter) and one immigrant kid was crying he was so cold. I loaned him my oversized gloves and hat that day and gave the principal some high-tech gloves and hat to give to the kid the next day. There is no way that kid is getting a graphing calculator out of his parents.
I ask my kids if any of their classmates need a computer as I often end up with an older computer every few months. Again critical for homework but unaffordable in many homes.
We slashdotters probably look at things like the raspberry pi as a toy for some cool robot project but personally I suspect that one of the biggest impacts they will have will be a small number of industrious kids who make them their home computer and then are able to get ahead educationally.
So to the OP, you have a pile of life changing resources there; so go change some lives.
It is truly admirable that teachers will spend their own salary on supplies, but they need to stop doing it. The school board will eventually make up the difference, but will be happy to let them dip into their own pockets until then. I also think they need to go home every day at 5PM and leave their work behind, unless there's overtime pay (some states do, most don't).
Lets say your company sent you to install some software at a client site, but you have to supply the server. Would you do it? Maybe you would, if you were passionate enough about your job. Would your boss expect it the next time? Oh yeah.
And in regards to the federal level comment, school shouldn't be part of the Federal Government at all. Lets keep the taxes, the revenue, and the expenditure at the local level. Then, if you have a problem with the way schools are run, you can take it up with the county. Unless, that is, you prefer things like No Child Left Behind.
:wq
When I bought my house I decided to not move all the computer trash I had hanging around my old apartment. I discovered that I had 15 computers I had no use for. I dropped them all, 2 or 3 at a time, next to the dumpster. Each time by the next morning they were gone.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
nobody gets it anymore...you have to say hadoop cluster now.