Science Olympiad Detector Building event

The Science Olympiad’s newest Div. C event, Detector Building, is now one of the 23 approved events for this year’s competition. This year’s competition has students building, testing and coding a working mass scale. Texas Instruments (TI) has plenty of resources to help your team be competitive.

Students will need to know how to write a program that will accurately and precisely weigh the mass of different objects.

TI graphing calculator pluged into an Arduino Board and a BreadBoard

Setup with TI technology

What do you need?

TI graphing calculator (TI-84 Plus CE or TI-Nspire™ CX,
TI-Nspire™ CX CAS or TI-Nspire™ CXII)
TI-Innovator™ Hub or BBC micro:bit
TI-Innovator™ Breadboard Pack as well as other additional materials and supplies depending on design requirements.

Note: If you already have access to a TI-84 Plus CE, TI-Nspire™ CX graphing calculator, or the TI-Innovator™ Hub, make sure to update to the latest operating system and sketch versions. (See links below.)

10 miunutes of code Banner with 2 calculators the TI 84 Plus and the TI Nspire

10 Minutes of Code

New to coding? Start here to learn how to code with your calculator and
TI-Innovator™ Hub.

Learn to code

Path to STEM projects

Develop skills to do the Detector Building event using TI’s free how-to resource Path to STEM Projects.Units include Skill Builders, Projects and Extra for Expert challenges.

Building an LED Breadboard

Use TI’s Path to STEM Projects Unit 1 – Setting Digital Output (Skill Builder)

View Unit 1

Building a Sensor

Use TI’s Path to STEM Projects Unit 4 – Getting Analog Input (Project)

View Unit 4

Calibrating a Sensor

Use TI’s Path to STEM Projects Unit 5 – Calibration (Project)

View Unit 5

Making output work with input

Use TI’s Path to STEM Projects Unit 6 – Feedback and Control (Skill Builder and Extra for Experts)

View Unit 6

Additional helpful resources

Official rules for the Detector Building events
Where to buy TI resources for Detector Building and Path to STEM Projects
Update TI-Nspire™ family products and TI-Innovator™ Hub to latest versions
Update TI-84 Plus CE and TI-Innovator™ Hub to latest versions
Check out the webinar on resources and how-to's for the Detector Building event
Try other great STEM projects using TI technology

Questions?

Contact stem-team@ti.com

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