[lizard]

This can depend a lot on the context, which we don't have a lot of.

Looking at this a different way, they gave first-year students, likely with no established pre-requistites, an open-ended project with fixed hardware but no expectation to submit the final project for review. If they wanted to verify the students actually developed a working program, they could have easily asked for the Pi's to be returned along with the source code.

A project like this was likely intended to get the students to think about the "what" and not worry so much about the "how." Faking it entirely may have gone a bit further than intended, but would still meet the goal of getting the students to think about what they could do with this computer (if they knew how)

While university instructors can vastly underestimate student's creativity, they are, generally speaking, not stupid. At the very least, they know if you don't tell students to submit their work, you can often count on them doing as little as possible.

[godelski]

> If they wanted to verify the students actually developed a working program, they could have easily asked for the Pi's to be returned along with the source code.

Wait, is your argument honestly "it's not cheating because they just trusted the students"?

There's a huge difference between demoing something as "this is what we did" vs "we didn't quite get there, but this is what we're envisioning."

Edit: You all are responding very weirdly. The cheating is because you're presenting "something" that is not that thing. Put a dog in a dress and call it a pretty woman and I'll call you a conman.

[lizard]

No, the argument is, "It's not cheating because it wasn't a programming assignment."

[awesomeMilou]

> Put a dog in a dress and call it a pretty woman and I'll call you a conman.

Well if you're the TA and you're unwilling/too lazy to call out the conman, I call you an accomplice! Also, since when was the ideal scientific rigour ever build on interpersonal trust?

[joshspankit]

No, it’s not cheating because the ask was “something” not “some program”

[addicted]

Which is only not cheating if it was presented as not a program and a fellow project mate sending out an email.

In US colleges at least (only because that’s where I have personal experience…not because I believe standards are any higher or lower here), this is cheating if they led their professor to believe that it was indeed the raspberry pi sending out an email rather than someone at the back of the class.

[joshspankit]

While it’s minimal (and some might consider it below the bar), they did successfully use the pi to read an external moisture sensor and print the results to the screen.

They did use the hardware provided, and did use software to accomplish a goal. If the teacher just wanted to test what problem solving skills the students walked in, I’d say that’s a fair result.

[addicted]

Again, it’s easy. Did they present it as that? Or did they fake stuff to make it appear to the professor that they got the hardware and software to do more than it did?

[godelski]

I'm honestly impressed by how many people aren't getting this. The distinction is so clear too. Maybe needs to be presented in a different way?

For anyone not getting why this is cheating, try this. Pretend you are the teacher. You saw students pull this stunt and say that it was a live demo. Would you feel like you were deceived if later you found out it was not in fact how they presented it? (I'm honestly unsure how you can answer this in the negative)

Or how about you watch an ad of someone taking to a box and the box responding, then you buy the box and it's a pile of rubber bands and paper clips. Would you want your money back?

[lizard]

You're assuming the objective was to develop a functioning program on the Pi.

But what if the Pi was only ever meant as a story-telling device to get the students thinking about the kinds of things computer programs can do?

Sure, some of students would be able tell a story by building a functioning program, but dvsfish simply found another way to tell theirs.

[godelski]

Have you ever been to the Olympics? Because I think you could medal in gymnastics.

>> It was our first comp sci class ever

>> asked to create "something"

It doesn't matter what that "something" was if you are claiming that you made "something" else. The lie is not necessarily the final result, it is the telling of the final result. The context of the whole thread is also about deceit because rtfa.