It’s no secret that I’m an opponent of calculators. In fact, I recently suggested to readers of 12Most.com that they burn their calculators!

But there is one calculator that isn’t burn-worthy.

The QAMA Calculator requires the user to input a reasonable approximation before it churns out an exact answer.

So if you asked your QAMA Calculator to find the square root of 5, it would ask you first what $$\sqrt{5}$$ is really close to. Like this:

That’s annoying!

Okay, maybe. If you need the calculator to do some quick work (the real reason to use a calculator), then you don’t need the darn thing quizzing you about an approximation.

But the QAMA Calculator people thought of everything. You can turn off that feature!

But then the kids will cheat!

Ah! You would think so. But check out what it does when you turn the feature off:

So what do you think? Will you get a QAMA Calculator? (It’s only about $25 after shipping & handling.) Will you let your kids use it?

P.S. I paid full price for it – it’s not expensive and it’s a crazy brilliant idea, so I went for it.

then

or

You might also like:

• Confessions of a Calculator Addict
• When to Give a Kid A Calculator
• How Calculators Inhibit Learning the Distributive Property in Algebra
• Improving Creativity with Technology