Sophomore Chase Gibson wins TI Calculator challenge
PHOTO Chase Gibson
“The idea for the picture came from the fall theme of playing in the leaves,” sophomore Chase Gibson said, “so we tried to make it look like I was playing in the calculators.”
November 18, 2019
Posing on the ground surrounded by a circle of calculators, sophomore Chase Gibson entered and won a fall contest put on by Texas Instruments (TI). With the help of students in his fourth-hour Biology class, who lent calculators that led to the winning photo entry.
“It started with an advertisement for the contest on Instagram,” sophomore Marie Herzog said, “that I got while I was sitting in Precalculus class. I was sitting next to Chase and I brought it up as a joke, but we ended up taking it more seriously. We were mostly entering to try to win the Halloween costume that came with it. ”
Many students felt that Gibson was the perfect person to participate in this kind of event, because of this he easily gathered help and support from other classmates.
“Chase is the type of person that would take a joke to the next level and actually do it,” sophomore Molly Blanchard said. “He is definitely outgoing and is willing to do most things. I helped by rounding up all the calculators and putting them in a circle on the floor. It started with a few calculators, but then more and more people kept bringing them up to us, until we pretty much had a calculator from everyone in our class.”
After it was taken, Gibson entered the contest by posting the picture on his Instagram page with the hashtags #SpreadMathLove and #FallTIContest. Each week, a winner is chosen by TI and that entry is reposted on their instagram page. The weekly winners receive a box of gifts from TI, along with a free calculator.
“Once my friends and I heard about the contest, we knew we had to win it,” Gibson said. “I think it comes down to the absurdity of winning a huge, halloween costume that looks like a calculator that drove us to try and win. Also, winning the weekly drawing meant that I won a free calculator, which I donated to the library; I figured more kids could use it that way.”
On top of choosing weekly winners from Oct 14 to Nov 11, a grand prize recipient is chosen at the end, and she or he will receive the large calculator costume. Unfortunately, Gibson did not win this prize.
