HP Calculator Applications in the Workplace

[Don Shepherd]

(07-12-2014 02:42 PM)SEasterling Wrote:  I have since thinned the herd to keep only my favorite models

Welcome back! Like you, I "thinned my herd" about a year ago, keeping only my 65, a couple of 12c's, a 32sii, and a few 17b/17bii's for solver programming. Oh, and a Victor MEC/2 from 1972.

I'm a middle school math teacher and each year I challenge my students to beat me at "the 50 game." This is a game for 2 players. Players take turns choosing a number from 1 to 6 and keeping a running grand total, and the one who is able to hit exactly 50 is the winner. After they play it a few times, most of them figure out the winning strategy by working backwards: if you get to 43, you will win, and if you get to 36, you can get to 43, and so on. The kids take great pleasure in beating me when they know the strategy. I have programmed my 17b (and other HP calcs) to play this game, and they try to beat it (they go first and if they know the strategy, they will win, but if they goof the 17b will win every time). Kids are lazy a lot of the time, but if you challenge them they frequently rise to the occasion.

My students don't use calculators to actually do math; that's what their brains are for.