Hack a Toy
30-60 min
Ages 8+
What Will You Make?
Create a momentary fabric switch. Code your toy with Scratch. Create kid-friendly alligator clips with clothespins for smaller hands.
Note: This is a project for students who’ve finished the Beginner Level Makey Makey class or makers who already have basic knowledge about Makey Makey.
You may want to try these projects first:
- Create a Controller to Plug and Play!
- Fruit Piano
- Draw a Playable Instrument
- Makey Makey Interactive Poster
- Creating a Guitar in Scratch
This project also uses elements from:
What Will You Learn?
In the previous project, you learned how to make switches out of everyday stuff. What if you used these simple switch ideas and simple sewing materials to hack a toy? You will use conductive fabric material for your invention instead of office supplies. To create an interactive toy, you will make two conductive spots on your toy that will complete a circuit when the two spots are pressed together.
Big Ideas for this lesson:
Create a momentary fabric switch
Code your toy with Scratch
Create kid-friendly alligator clips with clothespins for smaller hands!
Create different spots on your toy for your little sister/brother to test with their clothespin clips.
We are experimenting with different materials for different inventions to help you start experimenting with your own ideas for creating switches.
We want the projects to be a little more open-ended. You can create your toy hack like ours, or you can make different design choices.
Sewing a Momentary Switch with Conductive Thread
Step 1
Place a small piece of conductive fabric tape on each hand of your stuffed toy.
Step 2
Then thread a needle with about 24” conductive thread. Tie a knot at the end of the thread.
Use the needle to poke from the back of the stuffed toy’s hand, up to the conductive fabric patch. Make sure the thread comes up and over so that is makes a connection on the top of the fabric tape.
Step 3
Bring the needle back to the backside of the stuffie’s hand, make one more stitch on the back of the toy, and tie a knot. (I like to come back through the thread and pull my needle through this loop to make a knot. )
Step 4
You should have a spot now to clip your alligator clip to on the back of your toy’s hand. Clip one alligator clip to each hand.
Step 5
On your Makey Makey, plug one alligator clip to “SPACE” and the other to an EARTH connection on the bottom row.
Step 6
Now when your toy’s hands touch, it will make a connection just like your simple foil switch. Cool momentary switch, eh?
Alternative: No- Sew Method with Hook Up Wire
Step 1
Maybe you don’t have access to conductive thread? This step will show you how to use everyday office supplies and the materials in your Makey Makey kit to hack a toy.
The small white wires in your kit are called hook-up wire. These tiny wires are commonly used in electronics and cut to length, then soldered to hold projects in place and ensure conductivity. These wires fit in the back of the board (we’ll have a class on that soon!) but you can use them in any project.
If you don’t have conductive thread, you can use a hook up wire and poke it through your toy, just like you would use a thread and needle.
Step 2
Using needle nose pliers, wrap the exposed end of the wire onto the end of a safety pin. The exposed end needs to be attached well to the safety pin so we can extend the conductive area from the wire to the safety pin (you could also use a binder clip instead of a safety pin.)
Step 3
Cover the wire on the back of your toy with some low adhesive masking tape to keep it in place.
Step 4
Now clip an alligator clip to the exposed end of the hook up wire.
Step 5
Cover the alligator clip as well so it doesn’t come loose.
Step 6
Repeat in another spot on your toy, and now when those two conductive spots come together, you will complete the circuit.
Code in Scratch
Step 1
You can use your coding skills from the class “Code Your Key Presses in Scratch” to record and code sound effects, code your toy to be a musical instrument, or code your toy to be a game controller! This step is up to you to design and decide!
Step 2
See our game example here – it inspired us to go further and make a body systems toy. Further instructions are in the next step!
Kid- Friendly Alligator Clips with a Clothespin
Step 1
Sometimes those alligator clips are really difficult to pinch open and closed. Let’s make a kid friendly version with a clothespin, so your little brother or sister can easily clip to different conductive spots on your toy. (This clips will function as EARTH so you can have multiple key presses on your toy. )
Step 2
First take the clothespin apart. Just wiggle off the metal spring.
Step 3
Next cut two strips of foil to fit on the clothespin. Then use a glue-stick to adhere to the surface of each clothespin piece. You need one foil to wrap the entire length of the clothespin and the other side can just cover the front of the clip.
Step 4
Put your clothespin back together and attach an alligator clip to the end where the foil wraps around the end.
Step 5
Now you are ready to test on your toy. You can create multiple conductive spots, then in Scratch, you can code the descriptions of your toy’s anatomy or body system. Your toy may have multiple hearts, or three stomachs (like a cow!) or maybe your toy is an animal and you can actually code the real descriptions of the animal’s body system.
Step 6
Try our Scratch game here, by pressing the up arrow, left arrow, or spacebar to learn about our monster’s weird and wacky body system!
What Is Happening Here?
Conductive Sewing Supplies
We are experimenting with different materials for different inventions to help you start experimenting with your own ideas for creating switches.
In the same way you can make two pieces of foil touch, you can invent all kinds of actions that will close a switch to send a signal with Makey Makey.
There are some common materials when creating sewable electronics. Did you know that you can get thread that is conductive? Conductive thread is made with stainless steel fibers and can be used in place of alligator clips for sewing wearable electronic projects.
The other notions (that’s a sewing term to describe small sewing objects or accessories) you can use are quite common. We’ve had success with metal clasps and sewable metal snaps for our own Makey Makey invention hacks.
Design Considerations
You have three big decisions to make. First decide how you want to make your toy interactive and next decide what you want your toy to do. How will you actuate the switch? (Actuate means the physical movement that controls your switch.) Do you want a momentary switch or a maintained switch? (Remember these are the switch ideas from our last maker class.)
Do you want to shake your toy’s hand to make a light come on?
Do you want to hold your toy’s hands to make it talk?
Do you want your guitar toy to become a drum?
Do you want a snap to make the switch maintained?
You will use conductive fabric material in place of foil make a switch. To create an interactive toy, you will make two conductive spots on your toy that will complete a circuit when pressed together (or actuated).
If you don’t have conductive fabric or thread, you can still use foil, sewable metal snaps, or even clamp binder clips on your toy. If you don’t want to use conductive thread, skip down to the alternative “no sew” step.
Using a different material to make this switch helps you get started with experimenting with everyday materials to create your own switches and components. You can follow our toy hack, or hack a toy in your own way!
What Is Next?
Extensions
Here are some cool projects by others that use a similar method for teaching human anatomy:
Patrick Benfield’s students drew human body systems and coded them!
Here’s a wearable body system coat by Colleen Graves (the creator and teacher of this project!)
Once that you’ve created a body systems toy, what else can you make? What if you went one step further and found an old electronics toy to deconstruct or take apart? Just make sure you take out the battery before attempting this Deconstructing Toys Guide!
Makey Makey Classic Inventor's Kit
The original Makey Makey Classic – Named one of Consumer Reports’ “Best Tech Toys of 2014,” “Best of Toy Fair 2014” by Popular Science, and a finalist for Toy of the Year 2016.
Makes STEM Education fun! Start out easy with a banana piano. First setup takes seconds. Then make game controllers, musical instruments, and countless inventions. Advance to additional inputs and multi-key remapping up to 18 keys. Ages 8 to infinity.
Turn everyday objects like bananas into touchpads!
Connect the world around you to your computer! Setup takes just seconds.
Just plug, clip, and play! No programing knowledge needed. No software to install. Works with Mac and Windows.
1000s of possibilities! Draw your own game controller, sneak a cat selfie, and dance like never before.
Ages 8 to infinity.
Visit the Makey Makey website for tons of projects, educator resources, apps and more.
Materials:
- An old toy
- Conductive fabric tape
- Conductive thread
- Two alligator clips
- Makey Makey
- Sewable Conductive Notions (Optional)
