Yooo! I’m Amit a 17 years young iOS Developer & I made this really dope app called 6284 Calc that does your math and science homework. It also does cool stuff for you if you're not in school, things like percentage sales! (Useful during events like Black Friday) I also won a WWDC scholarship from it! I also may or may not use this on tests 😜
I started working on 6284 Calc when I was 15 and a half and I've been working on it since! The idea came to me when I was switched to a new school during the second semester and into a math class that was higher than my level. I was soo behind on work and I didn't know how to do any of it! The main goal was to keep it a tiny app, just keep it on my phone and attempt to cheat on a math test (never did it because I felt too guilty, but I use it on my homework!). My friends saw me using it to catch up on the work I was doing in that class and wanted it on their phones super badly. At that point I wasn't really sold on submitting it to the App Store making it public but I had no plans in the summer so I figured this way it'd be review for me doing this math stuff and building a product at the same time!
If you’re wondering why on 🌏 I made this (in-depth story) : http://www.businessinsider.com/a...
If you’re wondering what the name means & why I chose it :
@cbanowsky "17 years young" "yoooo" "I made this really dope app" all sound pretentious. Especially when you hunted your own product.
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While I tip my hat off to you for having made it at your age, I am sorry to say that I do not agree with its existence and I feel that you are doing a slight disservice to yourself and a greater one to others by publishing this.
If this was a Step-by-Step tutor type app, I would be all over it as awesome, great - way to go for helping your fellow students but this is basically as you put it yourself just a way to cheat...
or put it a different way... I have a friend of mine's son [11 yrs old] who is struggling with some aspects of math - and with your App, he gets the answer - no thinking involved... and sure it will help him probably have a higher grade but to what end - he'll continue not understanding certain math fundamental math concepts and since he is only 11 that's a bad thing... In a different interview, you said: "It’s better than turning in nothing." - not even close aside from the fact that depending on the school it could be considered cheating, it does absolutely nothing to help them through the logic to get to understanding...
Personally, I think it should be removed from Product Hunt, I know many will disagree with I do believe a tool like this will be more abused than used for it's the potential greater good.
and Mac's comment on humility is probably a good idea too...
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It does NOT change or take away your accomplishment of having gotten down to reading books, articles and figuring out how iOS worked to get it to work out - that's still impressive and cool for you and going to WWDC, I'm sure was also quite fun...
@emmanuel_lemor let me ask you something - when's the last time you've used the quadratic formula in real life? what's the point of knowing it if it's not benefitting you in real life. kids usually study the formula, use it on the test, 2 weeks after they've forgot it. And they'll never use it again in the real life. The app does also show step by step solutions :)
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@amitnkalra Amit, that question or similar is so reflective of the fact that you are a teenager and I can respect that I was one once as well [not that long ago], and at that time, I had a pretty tough dad who said: "you can buy that HP 48SX you want to buy with your money that you earned as long as you can show me that you can do every function in your head or on paper [took a 3 day weekend]" - might seem harsh from your point of view but he didn't want me to have the excuse to not do well on a test because my calculator died... Today, I can't tell you how much I am thankful for what at the time seemed like a tough weekend :/ lol
I actually used the Quadratic equation 3 months ago and NO, I am not a Math Teacher.
And square roots, I use every once in a while too, as well as circumference, diameters, products, divisions, multiplications, additions, subtractions and percentages - some of those every day... and yet I don't have a job that has anything to do with math...
But the most important thing that you are missing here is Math teaches structure, organization, discipline [in your brain], logic, workflow, understanding of process, linking of data/information between themselves, how to manipulate data/information to achieve a new goal or purpose and that you can NOT live life without doing... even if you are a county street cleaner picking up refuse [not that there is ANYTHING wrong with that job btw, I was just using that to illustrate that it's not so much the type of job one might associate with math like rocket science or astrophysicist]...
The reality is for elementary and high school math, inborn talent [being genetically predispositioned to being good at math] is just much less important than hard work, preparation, and self-confidence.
So, unless your App, forces the student through the steps somehow and teaches them that logic, those tricks, those new ways to wire their brains, make those jumps in understanding, I stand by what I wrote earlier.
And by the way, an App that could do THAT, you could run an entire SaaS company around... and it *would* be helpful your fellow students greatly...
[As a side note, a study came out in 2014 by Univ. of CA, Santa Barbara, which links Math and Social Skills with people earning more money in life]... so I guess Math does have it's uses after all ;)
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@amitnkalra@emmanuel_lemor hey Amit, i think its absolutely amazing what you pulled off especially for your age. i wish i had started as early as you. you're off to a great career in computer science. as you expect now comes the "but" :) i had precisely the same thinking about certain topics i learned in high school. i thought i would never need that level of calculus or the skill to interpret poetry. actually, turns out i was right about poetry :D BUT i was very wrong about the math skills. let me just throw a few examples in your direction:
- Machine / Deep Learning is math exclusively. The only reason you also need some CS skills is to tell the computer what it should calculate. its about the multiplication of huge matrices, finding the derivatives of functions to optimize weights and make the algorithm perform better.
- 3D computer graphics is also only math. defining polygons in a 3D space, finding the intersection of rays hitting objects, calculating different portions of light and their angles to make the scene look realistic. defining interpolation functions like spline to make animations look good
- Editing pictures means nothing else than modifying pixel values by various functions or convolution kernels. detecting edges and objects by optimizing away information you don't need. its all math.
also, asking "when's the last time you've used the quadratic formula in real life?" to stress that you never really need, is a pretty ballsy move for someone your age.
@gopietz@emmanuel_lemor Not everyone is going to be a computer scientist. And Editing Pictures? Come on, you're telling me stuff that goes on internally, photographers that edit their pictures don't use math...
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@amitnkalra@emmanuel_lemor yes, i was only talking about computer science related work. But Math is a common denominator among well paid jobs in general. i just dont want you to think that you wont need this stuff in the future.
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Just downloaded it, sick app man. And your 17 too? Awesome. I'm 14 myself so I can appreciate the fact of a young person making this. Sick!
Love it, reminds me of the TI-85 app I wrote in high school to "cheat" on my calc homework. The irony is that I needed to really understand how the equations worked to write my program and I spent way more time on it than if I had just done the homework by hand. Also didn't hurt to spend some time building future career skills outside the lucrative field of being a professional Calculus-er.
Very cool app and great job! Although I do agree with the other commenters saying you need to learn this stuff.. especially if you're going to be writing code professionally. Please don't make our California schools have worse education when it's already bad enough :). Love the app though again...great job!
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