Hey guys, if you’re looking to get the creativity and fun of Makey Makey into classrooms or workshops, then you’re in the right place! Makey Makey is an incredible tool for educators to get kids thinking about how they can use technology to interact with their environment in imaginative new ways.
If you haven’t already, check out our welcome to Makey Makey Australia article, which gives a broad overview of the Makey Makey platform. Here we’ll look at why Makey Makey is such a great choice for educators and students alike.
Why Makey Makey?
Simple yet Powerful
Makey Makey is designed to encompass the plug-and-play mentality like nothing else. It’s a HID device over USB which means you can plug it into any computer, and it will work exactly like a keyboard/mouse with no software, drivers or configuration required.
It’s Hands On
With Makey Makey, kids don’t have to learn electrical and computing principals from a book, they can immerse themselves with creating exactly what’s inside their head. A giant playdough keyboard? Sure! How about drawing a game controller shaped like a dinosaur, with a pencil? Why not!
Reprogrammable and Versatile
The Makey Makey is based on the Arduino platform and is easily reprogrammable to learn the basics of coding, and you can even control the output pins to perform certain functions based of the input triggers. In fact, there are a couple of different ways that the input pins on the Makey Makey can be used; capacitive touch, and resistive touch. We've also created tutorials covering how to reprogram your Makey Makey to use capacitive touch vs. resistive touch, along with the pros and cons of both.
What's in the Educators Pack?
We’ve made it as easy as possible for educators to get started with Makey Makey by including EVERYTHING you need for 10 complete sets of Makey Makey’s in the Educator's Pack for Makey Makey including alligator clips, USB cables, and over 100m of copper foil adhesive tape, which means students can design their own circuits just using tape and connectors! Along with these inclusions, we've got a great range of accessories that you can use with Makey Makey including silicone covered wire in heaps of colours, spare aligator clips which you can use with the wire to create extra long leads for projects, and extra wide copper adhesive tape.
What Can You Do With Makey Makey?
Makey Makey brings an almost unlimited potential for creative projects and applications. We've collected some of our favourite projects floating around using Makey Makey to give you inspiration for future inventors. The Makey Makey site also has an area on their site specifically for educators containing pre-made lesson plans and projects targeted for educators, check it out here.
Fancy making a classroom symphony using Makey Makey?
Or how about painting your own instrument?
And the guys who designed the Makey Makey created this video to serve as creative inspiration:
For more inspiration, check out our other Makey Makey articles for more great projects you can do with your Makey Makey.
