Makey Makey Interactive Poster
45 min – 1 hour
Ages 8+
What Will You Learn?
This activity allows you to combine Makey Makey and Scratch to create an interactive poster. While designing your own interactive poster, you will investigate how circuits work. Plus, you’ll begin to think about user interface design and how it is important when designing physical computing projects.
Research Poster Topic
Step 1
Create a poster about the topic you want to share! You can make an interactive body systems poster, interactive display about an animal, display the life cycle of plants, share great poetry, and more! The possibilities are endless!
Step 2
Once you’ve researched a topic, design a poster with images and text to display what you’ve learned.
Record Audio in Audacity or Scratch
Step 3
You can record your audio directly in Scratch, or record in Audacity and upload to Scratch.
Recording Focus
If you are recording poetry, make sure your voice matches the mood and tone of the poem you are sharing. Practice what you will record multiple times before recording.
Audacity
Record sounds and export as an mp3 or wav file.
Scratch
In Scratch, pick a sprite, and open the sounds tab. (Your sprite can be an image you uploaded or a sprite from the Scratch sprite libraries.)
In the sounds tab, you can upload your own mp3 or wav file, load a surprise sound, or record a sound by clicking the microphone button. If you recorded a sound in Audacity, then upload your mp3 here in the sounds tab. Or follow directions below to record your sound in Scratch.
Once you click the microphone to record or upload a sound, you can edit your sound and add effects. Make sure to name your sound so you will be able to code key presses easily.
Code Sound Bites in Scratch
Step 4
Now that you have sounds in Scratch, you can easily code the sound to play on a key press. Make sure to assign each sound to a different key press so you can trigger sounds with different Makey Makey inputs.
To trigger sounds with a key press, you can use the “when key pressed” hat from the yellow “events” palette.
Or you can add the Makey Makey Extension and use the “When Makey Makey Key pressed” hat.
Coding Multiple Sounds on Multiple Sprites
Optional
In our Black History Month Scratch Project, we coded each sprite to play the reading of a poem. Since the poems are long, we added the code “stop all sounds” under the triggering event so that the sounds will not play on top of one another.
Create Conductive Touch Points and Finish Poster Design
Step 5
Use conductive materials to create conductive touchpoints on your poster. When designing a user interface, think about the age of people who will be using your poster to learn about your topic. User interface design is an important stage in inventing!
- Is it obvious where to hold hold EARTH on your poster?
- Can users tell how to play sound effects when they walk up to your poster?
First decide what materials you want to use to make conductive touch points on your poster. You can use pencil lead (we prefer 6B pencils which have heavier graphite than your average pencil), metal paperclips, tin foil, etc. (Want to know what items are conductive? Check out this project to learn more.)
Option - Thumbtacks
You can use metal thumbtacks for conductive touch points. Press into cardboard and connect alligator clips on the back of the poster.
Option - Pencil Drawing
Pencil drawings work great as conductive touchpoints, but the graphite might come off on your fingers and you may have to redraw your circuits over time. Make sure lines are dark and thick and that the alligator clip is connected directly to the pencil drawing.
Option - Brass Fasteners
This is one of our favorite supplies for creating conductive
touchpoints! Press the fastener through your poster and fold the legs of
the fastener on the back so you can clip your alligator clip directly
to the fastener on the back of the poster.
Option - Mixed Items
You can always mix items, but make sure that your user knows how to play sounds on your poster!
Step 7
We added styrofoam on the back of our poster to stabilize it since the alligator clips add bulk. Think about how you want to frame your poster so users can press conductive touch points and your poster maintains stability.
Full How To Video for this Project
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:
- Makey Makey Classic
- Posterboard
- Conductive Material List
- Conductive Materials
- brass fasteners, metal thumbtacks, 6B pencils
Maker Camp Project Standards
Based on NGSS (Next Generation Science Standards)
NGSS MS.Engineering Design
The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) are K–12 science content standards.- MS-ETS1-1. Define the criteria and constraints of a design problem with sufficient precision to ensure a successful solution, taking into account relevant scientific principles and potential impacts on people and the natural environment that may limit possible solutions.
- MS-ETS1-2. Evaluate competing design solutions using a systematic process to determine how well they meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.
- MS-ETS1-3. Analyze data from tests to determine similarities and differences among several design solutions to identify the best characteristics of each that can be combined into a new solution to better meet the criteria for success.
- MS-ETS1-4. Develop a model to generate data for iterative testing and modification of a proposed object, tool, or process such that an optimal design can be achieved.
NGSS HS.Engineering Design
The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) are K–12 science content standards.- HS-ETS1-1. Analyze a major global challenge to specify qualitative and quantitative criteria and constraints for solutions that account for societal needs and wants.
- HS-ETS1-2. Design a solution to a complex real-world problem by breaking it down into smaller, more manageable problems that can be solved through engineering.
- HS-ETS1-3. Evaluate a solution to a complex real-world problem based on prioritized criteria and trade-offs that account for a range of constraints, including cost, safety, reliability, and aesthetics as well as possible social, cultural, and environmental impacts.
- HS-ETS1-4. Use a computer simulation to model the impact of proposed solutions to a complex real-world problem with numerous criteria and constraints on interactions within and between systems relevant to the problem.
