Scavenger Hunt TI-Nspire CX

GETTING TO KNOW THE CALCULATOR PAGE

2011 Texas Instruments Incorporated 1 education.ti.com
Activity Overview
In this activity, you will create and investigate the features of a calculator page.


Materials
TI-Nspire CX


Getting to Know the TI-Nspire CX

1. Where are the letters? ________________________________
2. What do you notice about them? Do they look like a keyboard?___________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________

3. Which key is located under the doc key? _________
The TI-Nspire is menu driven. You can explore the menu options in an application to figure out
how to do most everything.
4. On the TI-Nspire CX which key do you think you push to access the yellow functions that appear
above many of the keys? _________

5. The Touchpad is used to navigate the cursor around the screen. Press the Home/On button. You
should be on the Home Screen. Gently slide your finger across the Touchpad. Press the letter B
and type the letter x and press enter so you graph f(x)=x. Use the cursor to hover over the graph.
What happens to the cursor?_________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________
6. Where are the buttons for add, subtract, multiply, and divide? ___________________

7. To adjust the contrast, hold down the ctrl and press + or - keys repeatedly to lighten or darken
the screen.
8. The handheld is designed to mimic the operation of computers and computer software. Many of
the traditional shortcut keys used with computer software are available on a TI-Nspire handheld.
The handiest ones, ctrl Z and ctrl Y, are used to undo and redo actions.

Starting to Navigate the Handheld
9. Press On to enter the Home Screen. Use the arrows to move and explore.
a. How many options are there to select from on the screen? __________________
b. Which options might you select to graph a line? ___________________________

TI-Nspire Scavenger Hunt - Touchpad


2011 Texas Instruments Incorporated 2 education.ti.com
c. Which options remind you of some computer functions? _____________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
10. Press 1 to create a new document. If prompted to save the current document, choose no. Press 1
to start the new document with a Calculator. A blank page appears on the screen and a tab
labeled 1.1 appears in the top-left corner of the screen. What appears in the lower-right corner of
the screen? _____________________
11. Perform the following calculations.
a. Type 1/2+1/3 and press Enter. What do you notice? _______________________
b. Type 1./2+1/3 and press Enter. What do you notice? _______________________
c. Type (43(24)37)2 Do you notice the faded images of the close parentheses that appear
immediately after you press (? Press Enter. What was the result? ___________
12. What do you think the 3/99 in the bottom-right corner of the screen means? ______________
13. An object that is dropped near the surface of the earth initially accelerates down at 9.8m/s/s.
Distance d= a t
2
, where a is the acceleration and t is the time. If a rock is dropped 1.75 meters
above the ground. How long will it take to hit the ground? What if the distance was doubled?
Use ctrl and x
2
for the square root to perform the following calculations.
a.

=

b.

=

=

=

Note: After doing 12a there is any easy way to modify it to make it like 12b. Ask your teacher to
demonstrate this tip if you cannot discover it yourself. Hint: Up arrow and notice what is selected.
Press enter .

After doing 12d, press ctrl enter. What does this do? ____________________________