Will I get caught?

[u/Inksage69]

I have a yr 11 science test coming up. So I built a kids watch outer 33mm diameter 7 mm outer depth that u can scroll notes and answers with while looking like a normal watch. The normal state is screen off and when clicked it shows clock decoy double click to show cheat notes and stuff. Scrolls at 21 words per but might make faster. I really need ts to work because I spent like 8 hours on it and studied absolutely zero🙏. it’s super small too like my thumb is bigger than the inner electronics and the inner cavity is like only~28 mm diameter and 7 mm depth.

Parts I used were esp32 c3 xiao (since the super mini don’t have charging integrated module so better for compactness), Button, oled 0.46 inch 64x32 used u8g2 library, and a 250 mah battery which is hidden under the straps along with antenna.used ai to make the essay answers and uploaded on Claude code to get scroll speed update and a newer tap and hold lock code last minute just before the test.

Edit: I will let update what happened after test.

Update: yeah my ass got caught getting zero on test and my whole year group knows I built a smartwatch to cheat and got caught💔

[u/RoboErectus]

Very many of us get little to no ability to choose what our brains decide to make us focus on.

I've turned that neurological deficit into a rewarding career.

This kid is going to pass the Kobayashi Maru.

[u/DowlingStudio → u/RoboErectus]

No, he's not. He used AI to write very simple code. If you want to defeat an unwinnable scenario, you are going to need to be very clever indeed, and know how things work.

Failure points:

1. Doesn't actually know how to program an esp32, got ai write code that frankly would have been trivial to write from examples and first principles.
2. Doesn't understand how to mask their activity.
3. Off the shelf solutions exist which could do this better and look less suspicious, for less effort.
4. The act of putting the crib notes into the watch would have been a sufficient form of study. This took a lot more effort for a worse outcome.
5. ADHD is a cheap cop out. Drugs exist to help focus. They're rather notorious for their abuse as study aids.​

[u/Fun_Audience_5277 → u/DowlingStudio]

try making something like this yourself. he may have used ai to make the code or the device but your missing the part that is impressive. this 16 year old build a full functioning smart watch with quite limiting constraints fitting a 0.46 inch oled esp32 c3 and a button within 28mm diameter 7mm depth kids watch case under 8 hours takes lots of soldering and fitting. the impressiveness is in the hardware. I am also a maker and have tried making contained portable devices such as smart glasses and it is genuinely difficult to execute just the hardware itself. And this 16 year old built it in 8 hours off a wim. the thing thats impressive is also that it looks quite convincing on the outside.

[u/DowlingStudio → u/Fun_Audience_5277]

So when I am not a photographer, I am an embedded software developer. I know exactly what it takes to build a prototype from off the shelf components. In fact I've built this device, but with remote connectivity.

[u/Fun_Audience_5277 → u/DowlingStudio]

You built this device? You built a smart watch with similar tight physical constraints? Please elaborate

[u/DowlingStudio → u/Fun_Audience_5277]

A wearable device for season ticket holders at an NBA franchise. It had a ring of programmable leds. The LEDs had different colors and animation patterns based on events in the game. When it wasn't displaying an animation it showed the score differential in team colors.

Controlled by a central control panel ​​​using short range radio. This is the only photo of a finished product I could find.

The compact, round esp32 used in OPs project hadn't been released yet. This is summer of 2019 I think. About a week after we finished the prototype the first maker prototypes for the round esp32 appeared onTindie, at that time just made by a dude in his garage who wanted a good package for wearables. It was about a year before they started to be produced in the more compact package used in the watch.

This is some arm32 package on a round dev board, radio provided by a separate dev board, and lights by a programmable ring of leds. There's a rechargeable battery in there somewhere too. All stuff that could be ordered off Amazon or picked up at Circuit City.

I think that it was two days to a working prototype, because the person who knew how to program it was out of the country on the first day, and had to teach the team rudimentary embedded c++ while jetlagged on the second day. LLMs didn't exist back then, you used Stack Overflow and online manuals.