Last Wednesday, Cemetech Contest #12 drew to a close. For this contest, entries were restricted to TI-83 Plus, TI-84 Plus, and TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition programs, yet we still had close to a dozen community members come up with creative projects. We received seven entries by the Contest #12 deadline: four assembly programs and three TI-BASIC programs; three TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition-compatible programs, and five TI-83 Plus/TI-84 Plus-compatible programs. All seven showed the ingenuity and inventiveness we expect from Cemetech members, and all seven met the requirement of teaching users or students something concrete in their program. Many of the entries included some form of quiz or game to test students' knowledge, and many also included reference information or tutorials for students to learn from. I'll first introduce the non-winning but still admirable entries, and conclude with the winners.
And now, our third, second, and first place winners, in that order. Our prizes include three calculators: a TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition, a TI-Nspire CX, and an overclocked TI-83 Plus Silver Edition. We again thank our anonymous donor for the two new color-screen calculators.
To all our contestants and winners, congratulations! Please PM me your mailing address, and we'll get your prizes to you soon. If you feel like eventually posting up photos of your prizes and/or what you plan to do with them, we certainly won't complain. Since all contestants have uploaded their entries to the Cemetech Archives, we ask that you notify us if you don't want us to accept the upload. Most importantly, if your entry is unfinished, please finish it as soon as possible and publish it to help underscore the value of programming for creating educational calculator programs! If you didn't win, then keep your eyes open for Cemetech Contest #13 starting this fall, which will have more TI-84+CSEs and TI-Nspire CXs as prizes and for which we have a few extra surprises in store.
Left to right: "A Whole New Perspective", "Resistor Calculator", and "Element Teacher"
- Basic Handbook: This z80 ASM program makes use of the Doors CS GUI routines to present lessons on the fundamentals of TI-BASIC. At present, it teaches a simple "Hello, World" example plus a few additional commands.
- Bit Manipulation: A much-needed tutorial on bitmath by pyrotechnic, written in z80 ASM for z80 ASM programmers. It's a work-in-progress that currently teaches boolean logic commands and z80 ASM bitmath operators, and has extensive documentation on its plans for a quiz mode.
- Survival: Newcomer APotato submitted this TI-84+CSE TI-BASIC game inspired by Darwinian evolution and the principle of "survival of the fittest". It includes several minigames of chance and skill that determine if the player's hypothetical species thrives or perishes.
- CBCRTR: An electronic circuit builder and simulator by 16aroth6 that also teaches the basics of electronics. The main missing piece is the simulator component, which should bring this already capable learning tool to the next level.
And now, our third, second, and first place winners, in that order. Our prizes include three calculators: a TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition, a TI-Nspire CX, and an overclocked TI-83 Plus Silver Edition. We again thank our anonymous donor for the two new color-screen calculators.
- In third place, Element Teacher by CalcGuy123 teaches information like name, symbol, atomic mass, and more for elements on the periodic table, then quizzes students on what they learned. It earned high marks for including a wealth of useful information, and with a small bit of additional polishing should be ready for Chemistry students everywhere.
- Second place went to geekboy1011 for Resistor Calculator, a color z80 ASM program for the TI-84+CSE that translates resistor color codes to resistance values and also offers reference materials for electrical engineers. Geekboy1011 earned particular recognition from the judges for showing consistent effort and progress on his project in his contest topic throughout the competition.
- Matrefeytontias wins first place for A Whole New Perspective, a sprawling z80 ASM project that teaches 3D programming. Matrefeytontias has produced a number of impressive 3D projects in Axe and assembly in the past, and has shared his experiences in an easy-to-understand format with this interactive tutorial.
To all our contestants and winners, congratulations! Please PM me your mailing address, and we'll get your prizes to you soon. If you feel like eventually posting up photos of your prizes and/or what you plan to do with them, we certainly won't complain. Since all contestants have uploaded their entries to the Cemetech Archives, we ask that you notify us if you don't want us to accept the upload. Most importantly, if your entry is unfinished, please finish it as soon as possible and publish it to help underscore the value of programming for creating educational calculator programs! If you didn't win, then keep your eyes open for Cemetech Contest #13 starting this fall, which will have more TI-84+CSEs and TI-Nspire CXs as prizes and for which we have a few extra surprises in store.
Left to right: "A Whole New Perspective", "Resistor Calculator", and "Element Teacher"
