This is not a very efficient way to do division, but the ability to repeat a complicated process by pressing one key will pay dividends later on. Students should be encouraged to seed the calculator with any number at all and then iterate it under an operation using the ans key. For example, press 3 and enter it, then type ans . The result quickly grows past the capacity of the calculator. Choosing ans after entering 3 produces an entirely different sequence converging on one.
Students can pick seeds, then operations, and then iterate.
They should, on occasion, be asked to verbalize or write about their observations. Experiment with both positive and negative real numbers and a range of functions including trig and reciprocals. You can't hurt this machine with numbers. As we all know, simple interest is found by the formula in a straightforward fashion , but the problem becomes much more interesting when we let the interest compound, that is, we when let the interest accumulate along with the principal. Now we set up our recursion formula, 1.1 ans , and as we repeatedly hit enter we see the amount on deposit on the dates interest is paid.