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Activity, Part a – Texas Instruments TI-73 User Manual

Page 29

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24

Using the TI-73: A Guide for Teachers

Patterns and

Functions

© 1998 T

EXAS

I

NSTRUMENTS

I

NCORPORATED

Activity

Part A

1. Ask students: Look at the row for the number of

blocks. What pattern do you see?

(The first number is

3 and then increases by 1.)

2. Demonstrate along with your class how to put the

pattern into the TI-73.

a. Explain that this whole scenario starts with a

1-level tower that needs 3 blocks. So the first entry
is 3.

[ b

b. Ask students: How many blocks do you need for a

2-level tower?

(Remember, you are working on

how to get from the original 3 blocks to the 4
blocks in the 2-level tower.)

c. Press \ Y.

Ask the class to tell you what

Ans

means.

(Explain that just pressing \ indicates to the TI-73
that it needs two things to add, so it grabs the
answer (in this case,

3

) that you had in the line

above and calls it

Ans

.)

d. Press b.

Explain that the number of blocks in the 1-level
tower is the first entry and output on the screen
(

3

). The number of blocks in the 2-level tower is

the next output (

4

).

e. Press b again.

Ask the class to explain what happened.
(Because you did not enter a new command, the
TI-73 did the previous command again; but this
time,

Ans

stood for the most current answer, which

was

4

.)

f.

Ask students: How would you use the b key
(this technique) to find out how many blocks you
would need for a 10-level tower?

Have students count aloud

as you press b

7 more

times.