Interactive Dots

Celebrating International Dot Day, 5th grade students created interactive dots using conductive paint on their dot connecting it to the makey makey controller and then to the laptop and using an on line program Scratch to program the Dot. You could also download the Scratch Offline editor in case there are internet issues. The students worked in groups of 4-6 to program their dots.

First the students painted their dots using the black conductive paint. I had students draw a shape on their dot either geometric or organic. They had to make sure that part of the shape touched the edge of the dot, in order to connect the alligator clip from the makey makey. When they painted the dots they used very little of the conductive paint. The paint is water soluble, they use water to move the paint. Make sure the paint is not too thick or thin when painting in the dot.  The color paint on the dot is non-conductive it is just for decoration of the dot.











Students connect the Makey Makey to the laptop using the USB connector. Then connect an alligator clip to the Makey on the right, left, top, down arrow or space on the controller.
The students use the on line program Scratch to program sounds for their dots. 

IMG 4337 from gwenn zaberer on Vimeo.

Musical Tree

Students made musical leaves by using conductive tape to connect to the leaves, then connecting to the alligator clips that attach to the makey makey. The makey makey is connected to the laptop through USB. The leaves are programmed using scratch.

Students get into groups of 3-4 to design musical tree by taping leaf circuits using conductive tape.














Students connect the alligator clips from the makey to the conductive tape and program a sound for each leaf using scratch.  After each leaf is programmed with a sound. The students need to touch the ground and the touch the leaf after they dip their figure in water. Water is the key to conductivity.











Here is the video of the end product.

Scratch and Makey Makey Directions for Interactive Dot and Musical Tree

Scratch is a drop and drag coding program that is on the web. You can also down load the on line editor to bypass any internet issues. The website is scratch.mit.edu

You can start by clicking on create to start a new script, you can create an account in order to be able to save, or you can download the off line editor to your laptop, and you can save directly to your laptop.
Once you are in the program you can start by clicking create. Below is the screen you will get. We are not working with the cat this time so he will just hang out to the left. You will be dragging and dropping code to the right.

 

Next you will go to the Scripts tab and click on Events. You always need to start with an event in Scratch. Next you will drag and drop the block of code that says "when space key is pressed" Then drag block code to the space to the right. 

Next you will click on the Sounds tab to choose a sound for your command. The Sounds tab automatically has a "meow" sound but you can search more sounds by clicking on the speaker icon. When you click on the speaker icon you will see a whole library of sounds. You can preview sounds by hitting the play button. When you select a sound make sure it is greyed out then scroll to bottom of page and click OK.

Once you choose sound click on script tab and then click on the magenta color block of sound. Below you will choose the "play sound meow" code block and drag to the right. Connecting it to the Event block.

















Follow these steps for programming sound for each item that is connected the space control and up, down, right and left arrows on the Makey Makey.

Always remember to click the green flag to start all events.