We're returning this year for the fourth time to Texas Instruments T^3 2016 conference in Orlando, Florida. For the past three years (2013 with postmortem, 2014 with postmortem, 2015 with postmortem), Cemetech has been attending T^3. Each of the three years, I (Dr. Christopher "Kerm Martian" Mitchell) have attended, joined in various years by administrator Shaun "Merthsoft" McFall and member Ander "DrDnar" Dnar. This year, I'm thrilled to be joined by administrator Thomas "elfprince13" Dickerson. In past years, we have collected news about new TI efforts and enjoyed excellent sessions taught by teachers from across the country. I have also given a talk each year about TI-BASIC programming and why (and how) to do it with students in the classroom. This year we'll be doing all this again, but we're also doing something new this year.

For the first time, Cemetech will have a Maker Faire-style booth where we'll be showing off some of the things that we do to promote programming and STEM education, including our Whack-a-Mole game, our SimpleI/O ArTICL demo, my books, and more. Finally, we'll be announcing two significant upgrades to Cemetech's educational resources this week that we think our programming members as well as students and teachers will find very helpful. We're excited to tell teachers about our resources, expound why they should be teaching programming and STEM concepts in their classroom with graphing calculators, and hearing opinions and stories from their experiences. As always, we'll be sharing what we learn here on the forum and on our Twitter and Facebook accounts. And don't forget to keep an eye out for our hands-on exploration of TI's new electronics + calculators tools similar to our ArTICL project.

If you're going to be at T^3, please feel free to stop by and say hello; if not, we'll be honored to bring you news and information from the conference.

Below: Our past experiences at T^3 and Maker Faire; we'll soon have photos of this year's T^3 2016!
That's exciting! I'm bummed I can't go but commitments and obligations come first. Hopefully next year I'll be in a better position to attend, though that's what I thought in February 2015 as well. I look forward to the coverage!
I wish you could have come this year, comic, and I'll certainly do what I can to encourage you to come to the conference. It's a lot of fun, it's a great opportunity to see the flip side of the devices (and their audience) we do so much with, and it's also a good opportunity to tell them about programming. A lot of the teachers aren't that aware of calculators as programming tools, and they're largely receptive to what we have to say.

Edit: After a very long night of preparation, I have disassembled and packed away the Whack-a-Mole game, improvised new legs for its wooden backboard to replace the ones I left with geekboy, made it a cardboard box with a very clear paper indicating what it is to put in my luggage, and found a way to fit the remainder of the displays, Arduinos, USB cables, banner, and so on in my suitcase. There's still plenty to do, like practice my talk, create stands for copies of my books, and a few others, but I'm satisfied that packing is well under way.
*bump* I'm at the airport waiting for my flight to T^3! I left my house two hours ago, and I have another three hours to wait for my flight that's delayed 1.5 hours, so in summary, I wish there was high-speed rail to Florida. </soapbox> A few photos from last night and this morning:

From left to right: stands made at 2am from foamcore to hold books, suitcase packed with just about everything I need for our displays, spotting an Acela train on the bus to the airport, and waiting for my flight, with 3D-printed Cemetech logo and TI-84+CE to keep me company
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A few of the highlights from T^3 2016 so far (check out the album for all the photos):

Dr. Peter Balyta introduces the TI-Innovator System, which lets you control sensors, motors, buzzers, and more with the TI-84 Plus CE and TI-Nspire CX. Dylan Wiliam, the keynote speaker, talks about formative assessment and how to improve math and science instruction.


The only gold TI-84 Plus CE in existence, the new TI-Innovation box, and our Cemetech booth.


Finally, one of the best Twitter exchanges I've seen: I taunted BrandonW about a calculator he can't add to his collection, and the president of TI Education "liked" it.
KermMartian wrote:

Finally, one of the best Twitter exchanges I've seen: I taunted BrandonW about a calculator he can't add to his collection, and the president of TI Education "liked" it.


inb4 Brandon buys it off her for $[redacted]
Ivoah wrote:
KermMartian wrote:

Finally, one of the best Twitter exchanges I've seen: I taunted BrandonW about a calculator he can't add to his collection, and the president of TI Education "liked" it.


inb4 Brandon buys it off her for $[redacted]
Haha, I joked about that with Elfprince. Smile He said that Brandon would probably offer her the Stargate Iris as a swap.
That gold is gorgeous. How did the person win it?
tifreak8x wrote:
That gold is gorgeous. How did the person win it?
They were raffling off TI-84 Plus CEs, tee shirts, emoji pillows, an Epcot ticket for tomorrow, and the gold TI-84 Plus CE during the Tweet-Up lunch. I won DrDnar's Radical Red TI-84+CE last year during the Tweet-Up; this year I won nothing, but Elfprince won a tee-shirt.
*bump* A full news article with all of our experiences will be coming soon. If you want to watch the T^3 closing session streaming right now, though, check it out (with NASA astronaut Ricky Arnold and NASA educator Donald James:
https://www.periscope.tv/w/1OyKAzWNZanGb
Someone was going to win a book through tweets, but when TI asked them to come to their booth to claim it, the person asked for it to be mailed to them. TI had to choose a new winner xD
"406 K ought to be enough for anybody."---TI Education on the TI-84 Plus CE
Woah, 40404 still works?
allynfolksjr wrote:
Woah, 40404 still works?
Nikky is referring to Cemetech's tweet of a text message elfprince13 sent to me, using his maroon TI-84+SE as the keyboard for his computer's SMS app. He spent some time this weekend working further on Quenya8x.
The photo: https://twitter.com/cemetech/status/704074180581576705

Edit: Apparently, Nikky was actually referring to 40404's notification of the tweet + Like above. Please disregard.
  
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