Texas Instruments has just launched their second annual “TI Codes” contest to coincide with National Engineers Week. For STEM teachers, regardless of whether you are a math, science, or computer science teacher, this is a great opportunity to get kids involved in writing code in a fun contest. This year’s theme–food! TI is asking students to create a food product which could mean a new code driven cooking utensil, storage solution, nutrition idea, etc.
What Is the TI-Innovator Rover? When Texas Instruments announced this product last year, a programmable robot that can receive its programs from their TI-84 Plus CE and TI-Nspire CX graphing calculators, my ears perked up. The TI-Innovator system, a series of programmable devices that interfaced with TI calculators had been intriguing, but the Rover is a robot on wheels, you might say a drone, created from many of the same devices as the earlier Innovator components.
I’ve been so busy lately that I haven’t found a chance to comment on Texas Instruments’ very interesting announcement last month that they are release a robotic vehicle, the TI-Innovator Rover. The TI-Innovator Rover is designed to work with either with any TI-Nspire CX model or the TI-84 Plus CE. Check out the video below for a high level demonstration of the Rover in action. In addition to your graphing calculator, you’ll also need a TI-Innovator Hub.
Photo via Texas Instruments A few months back, Texas Instruments announced a new STEM education product they had developed that would encourage kids to develop coding skills right on their graphing calculators, the TI-Innovator. The Innovator would work with either the TI-Nspire CX family or the TI-84 Plus CE, the latest generation of Texas Instruments graphing calculators. I was very intrigued by the promotional materials and press release, but to be honest, I was not entirely clear what capabilities the TI-Innovator had.
A few months back I had some time on my hands and did a post on how to graph Mickey Mouse with the TI-Nspire. Today I found myself in the same situation and decided to try my hand with the classic Nintendo character Mario on the Nspire. I imposed the same rules on myself as before, the goal was to plot using only functions/equations/relations available on the Nspire’s graphing menu and restricted domains.
UPDATE: I have posted a hands on TI-Innovator review. Continuing to build their brand as a way to teach and learn STEM skills in the classroom, Texas Instruments has announced exciting new hardware, the TI-Innovator Hub. The TI-Innovator was created using the TI LaunchPad™ Board technology and is designed as a classroom tool that introduces students to coding and engineering design. “The TI-Innovator allows students to get hands-on with technology and not even realize they are learning important STEM principles, like coding, that they need to be successful in the classroom today, in college tomorrow and in their careers in the future,” said Peter Balyta, Ph.
Back when I was a Pre-Calculus teacher, one of the projects I used to assign during our conic sections unit was creating an art project out of equations, using circles, ellipses, lines, etc, and restricting their domains. It’s a fun way to reinforce how the various parameters for these equations influence the shape of their respective graphs. We did this on graphing paper, and told the students they could check a few things with their calculators if they wanted, but in recent years, the TI-Nspire CX (review) operating system has come a long way.
TI-Nspire CX OS 4.2 has been released on the Texas Instruments website. You can find the release notes on the TI website. There are a few cool new features in this release, including the ability to automatically generate sliders for certain parameters in graphs and notes, manage the settings of connected handhelds through TI-Navigator (this will be very useful for teachers that work with inexperienced Nspire students), and a few other selected upgrades.
Please buy your TI-Nspire CX on Amazon . With a new school year upon us, I’m bound to get a flood of questions from students about which graphing calculator is right for them. Since the new color TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition is now on the market, I’m assuming the question of the TI-Nspire CX vs. the TI-84 Plus C will be one of the biggest questions I get this school year.
UPDATE: If you are interested in the TI-84 Plus C, please check out my TI-84+C Review. I was fortunate to receive a pre-release device from TI for review purposes. After word broke last week of a possible new graphing calculator from Texas Instruments, I reached out to TI, asking if they’d be willing to make any on the record comment about the rumors. Today, I heard from Texas Instruments Digital Content Manager Dale Philbrick, who gave me the first official public comments from Texas Instruments about their new device, the TI-84+ C graphing calculator.
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