Spike™ LEGO® Education vs TernaryCalc

Engage every student in playful STEAM learning with the LEGO® Education SPIKE™ App. Designed for use with the LEGO® Education SPIKE™ Portfolio, the SPIKE App is a powerful tool that helps teachers facilitate engaging, hands-on STEAM learning.      When combined with SPIKE Essential or SPIKE Prime, the SPIKE App allows students to:  - Develop computational thinking skills using a progression of icon-block, word-block, and text-based coding. - Build, tinker, and experiment - progressing from simple creations to complex structures. - Learn to program, test and tweak designs, debug and optimize, create stories with LEGO® Minifigures, prepare for FIRST® LEGO® League competitions, and more! *** IMPORTANT***  This is not a standalone educational app. This app is used to program LEGO® Education SPIKE™ Essential and LEGO® Education SPIKE™ Prime, which are sold separately. Please contact your local LEGO Education reseller for further information.    LEARN MORE: LEGOeducation.com/Teacher-resources For app support, contact LEGO® Education at https://support.legoeducation.com. LEGO, the LEGO logo and the SPIKE logo are trademarks and/or copyrights of the LEGO Group. FIRST® LEGO® League is a jointly held trademark of FIRST® and the LEGO Group. ©2026 The LEGO Group. All rights reserved.

This is a balanced ternary calculator. You can use it to add, subtract, multiply and divide just like any other calculator, only it works with a different number system. This takes a little getting used to, but it opens up an interesting new perspective on arithmetic. In particular, it provides an answer to the question: how do balanced number systems affect the way arithmetic works? When positive and negative numbers are on completely equal footing, does it still make sense to say that a negative times a negative equals a positive? The answer is: yes, it does – but it depends on the direction from which you approach it. This, along with other aspects of balanced ternary calculation, is explored in the ternary calculator. It’s a tool with a story to tell, and the story unfolds in the calculator’s info screen.