Re:Is the era of the $100 graphing calculator coming to an end?
by lr4444lr on Monday September 23, 2019 @05:50PM
(#21054124)
You could use the Matrix operations common on standard graphing calculator to cheat through a first semester circuits course, and with a little basic programming make a command line prompt that any idiot could fill in to get the right answers. I don't know if most eng. students realize this at the time they take linear circuits, though.
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Re:Is the era of the $100 graphing calculator coming to an end?
by pwg on Monday September 23, 2019 @09:51PM
(#21055708)
Maybe not all, but some did. Having matrix operations on my HP-15C certainly helped in my circuits exams for solving the simultaneous equations that resulted. And as far as the professors were concerned, solving the simultaneous equations was not the purpose of the exams, so they didn't care /how/ one solved them. The exam was on being able to setup the right simultaneous equations to arrive at the ultimate solution, not on the actual algebra of solving simultaneous equations.
Re:Is the era of the $100 graphing calculator coming to an end?
by alexhutcheson on Monday September 23, 2019 @11:01PM
(#21056092)
I don’t think this would be cheating. Setting up the system of equations is the skill that’s being tested. Having to solve that system to get the answer is incidental, and it’s mostly a skill the student is already assumed to have.
Re:Is the era of the $100 graphing calculator coming to an end?
by toomanybeersies on Monday September 23, 2019 @09:23PM
(#21055550)
You can also just do matrices by hand. I always found them quite easy once you got the hang of them, very easy and methodical.
Re:Is the era of the $100 graphing calculator coming to an end?
by girvo on Monday September 23, 2019 @09:51PM
(#21055706)
That was the first thing my tutor taught me in Grade 11, in preparation for Maths C (via distance education, that was fun). Still use that ability today, along with a fair bit of algebra and simple regressions