Technology

the so-called Chromebook Challenge includes students sticking things into Chromebook ports to short-circuit the system.

I am rather surprised that works. I thought any modern device would have overload protection in place. I think I even remember accidentally tripping it on some device, but it would just reset after reboot.
I also tried to see the max output current of my previous phone this way. Load it up till the protection trips. Result: Stable up to 2.1A, tripped at 2.5A.

Oh, yeah. A Xiaomi phone charger I have also shuts down if I either overload it or immediately load it near max rating rather than gradually increase the load.

Google didn’t respond to Ars Technica’s request for comment.

To be fair, I don't really see why they should. Chances are they didn't factor in that level of stupidity when designing those things.

It’d be a crying shame if the students were required to complete the school year with physical books and a notebook.

Youthful rebellion transcends technology.

Is there much difference between this and, say, using a pen to drill a hole in your desk?

Aren't the families responsible for the damages?

Man I'm so sorry to my highschool Chromebook. They gave me that shit in yr seven and I was incapable of keeping things in one piece at that age. I think every key had been taken off by the end of the year and there were several holes in the outer casing.

Well, maybe a school-issued computer should be designed differently than a consumer device.

Maybe such things should be considered beforehand.

In industrial ergonomics you are supposed to, ideally, present a worker with a few buttons with abundantly clear results of pressing them and no forbidden combinations leading to unexpected\undefined\dangerous results.

Kids sticking things into what's given to them are not an unexpected event. I'd say kids doing that are better than kids not doing that. And if it's expected, then this is almost entrapment.

Oh, oh, OH, you can't just put a consumer device with a web browser with Google and MS and Apple shit into schools then? No kickbacks from those companies? So fucking sad.

Forcing a kid to wear around a centrally managed device with a microphone and a camera makes me want to vomit. That should be illegal as many other things. It's a disgusting world.

These should be military-level (by resilience to attempts to throw them out of the window, sink them in the water, overheat them and so on) devices with something like FreeDOS+OpenGEM. That's by far enough to run school programs. If you think it's not, then you are possessed by collective delusions, that's a thing in crowd psychology, so drink a glass of water, listen to cars\birds, look at the sky and answer which fundamentally new tasks you need to solve as compared to having year 1999 Internet (as in open a static webpage, follow links, send forms), WordPerfect and Basic. Especially at school.

We use axes, knives, hammers and screwdrivers and other stuff to do things, more or less as they existed 300 years ago, when we are not professionals, who of course use power tools.

Perhaps it's more like "Kids short-circuiting school issued chromebooks because of excessive surveillance."

...but probably not (or at least, not entirely) because many kids are dumb.

source: was a dumb kid.

I thought system will turn off USB port if notice current over draw. Look like I am wrong.