This 16-year-old kid fell behind in math class, so he built an app to do it for him

Pre discussion questions

If you could not understand math class, what would you do?

Do you think this boy is bad at math?

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In his freshman year of high school that Amit started having difficulty in math class.

But it wasn't because he couldn't handle it. Amit, now 16, had been transferred to a new school. At the new school he was put into an algebra class he had already taken. He asked  his mom to put him back in the old school. But in the old school he was now halfway behind in geometry. And he didn’t know about geometry.

Amit said he started to fail.  He felt alone. He didn’t know anyone in the class.

Most students would have given up. And would have decided to come back to summer school, or maybe even studied extra hard.

So Amit decided to make an app that would do all his math homework for him.

In May 2015, Amit started working on what would become his iOS app. The App name became 6284 Calc. Needless to say, it's not like any other calculator app you've ever seen.

That's because it's specifically made to take the confusion out of algebra, geometry, calculus, and other subjects. It lets users put the values into the given formula, and the app will do the rest. The app costs $1.99, and it will even give you all the steps it took to get there.

"What if this app just does the work for them?" Amit asked of students who may be having difficulty like he was. That they might just skip homework. It is easy because they just have to spend five minutes a day entering values. It’s better than turning in no homework.

Amit didn't have much iOS coding knowledge before 6284 Calc. But he did have some small little test projects like a random lottery number generator app he built for his dad. He ended up teaching himself how to code by downloading an ebook and experimenting.

But just about four months after he began, Amit released 6284 Calc.  The numbers mean M-A-T-H on a telephone keypad. Amit has been updating the app ever since he made it.

“Every time I learn something in class, the first thing I do instead of doing the homework, I would actually go work on it in the app first," he said.

Since the app's release, it's had about 30,000 downloads.  Though Amit has done little selling and marketing other than to text all his friends to try it out.

It also caught the attention of Apple, which invited him to attend the Worldwide Developer Conference earlier this year.

Try to guess the meaning of the words in bold and match them with their closest meaning from the choices in the right. Some of the answers are very close and have similar meaning. The meaning of these words is how they are used in the reading. Some of these words have different meanings in the dictionary depending on how they are used.

 The answers are below the table.

A=5, B=1, C=7, D=3, E=8, F=2, G=6, H=4

Some example sentences using the new words or phrases from the meaning of how they are used in the reading to help you understand better.

1.      English is difficult for many Korean people to handle, but you have to keep trying.

2.      Needless to say it is difficult to learn a new skill as you get older, but don’t let that make you give up.

3.      I made a lot of money with Samsung shares, specifically I made $100,000.

4.      If you skip more than 6 classes, then you will fail this class.

5.      We need to turn this project in by Thursday.

6.      Things in science can look random, but scientists try to find patterns.

7.      You should try out the sandwiches if you visit Philadelphia, they are famous.

8.      The student sleeping in class caught the attention of the teacher.

Some questions using the new words/phrases. Try to use the words/phrases in your answer.

1.      If you were in high school, would you try out Amit’s app?

2.      How would you feel if you made an app and it caught the attention of a big company like Apple?

3.      What is your opinion about Amit not skipping class, but finding a way to fix his learning problem?

4.      If you can’t handle some new learning, what do you do?

5.      Needless to say that learning a new language is hard, but do you agree that anyone can do it?

6.      What kind of job would you need to be specific in?

7.      Do you think that turning in homework using an app is cheating? Why or why not?

8.      Do you believe life is planned or random? Why?