Bill Gates once famously said that he’d rather hire a lazy person over a hard worker because the sloth will always find a way to do things the easy way. While there are certainly some holes in that logic, the latest report from San Francisco, California perfectly captures that lazy genius Gates’ quote is illustrating. Namely, in the process of being transferred between schools, a 16-year-old Amit Kalra fell behind in math class and found himself up to his neck in geometry, something he wasn’t exactly well-versed in. As he was struggling to cope with the subject and not able to count on any of his classmates because he didn’t know anyone, Kalra did the next most logical thing – he learned to code and built an app to do his homework for him.
So, back in mid-2015, this resourceful teenager started developing the 6284 Calc app and has actually released the initial build after only four months. From the looks of it, 6284 Calc is kind of like PhotoMath without the “photo” part as it allows users to pick a math subject such as geometry or algebra, input some values, and get solutions to their math problems. Besides resourcefulness, Kalra also demonstrated keen business sense as he released the app for free with a single $1.99 in-app purchase which allows users to see the actual step-by-step process of solving their problems. In other words, 6284 Calc can do your math homework for free but will also teach you how to do it yourself for a one-time fee.
Despite not exactly investing in marketing, the 6284 Calc did pretty well on the App Store as it currently boasts approximately 30,000 downloads. Like many young developers, Kalra attributes his interest in coding to gaming, specifically the Roblox MMO which is also available on Android. He taught himself how to build virtual worlds in Roblox a few years back and has actually authored Parkour City, the currently one of the most popular maps in the game which so far had over a million visitors. Unfortunately, the 6284 Calc currently isn’t available on the Play Store, but Kalra may still decide to port it in the future.