Makey Makey + Poetry
In our daily lives we use objects whose characteristics are worth knowing and more if we can do activities with them.
It is the case of pencils .
We asked children if they know what is a pencil and here are some answers:
The pencils are used for this and many other things … but one of them comes from its main ingredient, Graphite .
The pencils are conductive of electricity .
Games with Makey Makey and Scratch :
Taking advantage of these characteristics of graphite we have made some games with children, the Makey Makey and the Scratch .
Inside a box we have put several words so that they choose one at random.
The words we have put are words that have sounds of animals or things, like rooster , dog , raindrop , rain , door , bell , etc. …
Soup of Letters:
They have to look for the letters of their word in the Soup of Letters and join the letters with a lot of graphite. For this, we have used a 6B Pencil.
So that it looks like this:
In the first Letter Soup, the letters have been joined to form the word CABALLO . You can do it with the shape you want, straight or more labyrinthine. In the Second the word CAMPANA appears .
DRAW THE WORD:
Then, we have asked the children to draw the word on a folio A5 . The drawing must have a lot of thickness in its lines and must be well reviewed to be conductive . In addition, a line has to reach the end of the sheet to put the cable crocodile and that the circuit is created .
Like this:
Makey Makey :
Now we can connect the drawings or the soups of letters with the Makey Makey and the Scratch .
If you remember the Makey Makey is a plaque invented by two MIT students , Jay Silver and Eric Rosenbaum , whose end-of-course work has become his company.
It is a very simple and good idea. It consists of a plate that simulates being a keyboard and sends orders to the computer that is connected. Instead of pressing buttons like in a video game console, what is done is to close the circuit with crocodile clips.
The Makey Makey , allows us to turn any everyday object into a keyboard, controller or mouse.
It is a new way of interacting with computers and enhancing creativity.
In this case, our command is the drawings we have made but you can also use the Soups of Letters.
SCRATCH:
To program it, we used Scratch which is a very intuitive programming program for children.
In this case we will only use 2 sections:
Events and Sounds.
In the Events section , we will program the action that we are going to do. So we will say:
When pressing key / up arrow
/Down arrow
/ Right arrow
/Left arrow/
And we will unite it with the Sound :
Start sound / Bell
/Frog
/Dog
/Water drop
Everything together, Events and Sound, looks like this:
When pressing key / up arrow
Start sound / Frog
You can record your own sounds:
We have imported the sound from the Scratch list but you can also make them yourself by recording them … it’s a lot of fun !
To do this, go to the tab above SOUND and you will see that you have the option to record the sound and save it with a name … you can call them as you want and it will appear in the Sound list of the programming.
Sound poetry:
Now that you have everything programmed and connected, ……. if you have not done it yet this is the time to do it, connect the USB to the computer and use your drawings as a command. Now you can play with drawings and sounds!
If you press a drawing in the area of the pencil, you will see how you hear the sound you have programmed .
Do not forget to catch hands grounding to sound!
Test to play with the sounds, you can make several types of games: to orchestrate with your classmates, to see who is eliminated before, etc.
Sound poetry and visual poetry:
Our teacher Robotics has done us this program that translates the sounds into Visual Image and is so nice!
If you have any questions about how to do the activity, send us an email and we will help you!
