Author: gravescolleen

Review of Makey Makey Go and Inventor Booster Kit

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MakeyMakeyGo

Makey Makey Lessons

If you read my blog then you know I love all things Makey Makey!  While I was writing Makey Makey lesson plans last summer, I was super stoked to hear the announcement of their Kickstarter campaign for the super portable Makey Makey Go. Mine came just in time for Christmas, but unfortunately, I had to hold off on tinkering with it right away because Aaron and I have been busy working on projects for our upcoming book deadline. We’ve finally had some time to work out a few projects with the Go and I am in LOVE with it!

Makey Makey Go Experiments

The first thing we did with the Go during our family maker time was use it with our vintage Operation game. Who needs D batteries when you have a Makey Makey Go? My children had fun picking a sound for the simple Scratch program that would alert the computer every time a player performed a “bad” operation.

I’m not going to lie though, I didn’t understand Makey Makey Go at first. The first thing I tried to was trigger a selfie while eating a donut. That didn’t work for me though because I was using it wrong!  I’d lost the instructions, so I did a little research and found this review by Geekdad and that’s when I realized there were a couple of very important settings on this super simple maker tool! Check out the super clear instructions available online here.  The Go always has two settings: If the end is blue, it is programmed to mouse left click. You can tap the gear wear to set the Go to space bar and the end will turn red so you are aware of the setting. Plus, you can easily remap your Go space key to any key by going to http://makeymakey.com/remap/ . (However the left click option always stays left click!)

How Does Go Work?

So how does it work? The Makey Makey Go senses the object’s electrical capacity and when you touch the object you add electrons to it which tells the Makey Makey to GO! So it only works with conductive objects much like the original Makey Makey. However, it functions in a completely different way! With the original Makey Makey you (or a banana) complete a circuit to activate keys on your computer.  So when I attached the donut while I was holding it, I wasn’t changing it’s electrical capacity BECAUSE I WAS ALREADY HOLDING THE DONUT. Plus, eating the donut wasn’t going to add any electrons…. doh!

The Go is a pretty amazing little invention. After just a few short weeks of tinkering, I have a whole new understanding of capacitive sensing.

But let me tell you about something else I really love that came with this kickstarter…..

Makey Makey Inventor Booster Kit

Oh, Makey Makey Inventor Booster Kit, where have you been all my life? This inexpensive kit makes inventing with Makey Makey a breeze!

The Booster Kit comes with a piece of conductive fabric, a super long alligator clip, a super long hook up wire, and my absolute two favorite items in the kit…. wait for it…..

A MAKEY MAKEY optimized PENCIL?!?!? Goodbye, bananas, hello graphite!

Plus a roll of super cool conductive tape that reminds me of fabric! You can’t tear it, so it’s much sturdier than copper tape. I found this tape right after finishing my chapter on paper circuits. While I do love copper tape, this conductive fabric tape is THE BOMB!

I envision buying one of these packs to go with every Makey Makey at my library. How cool would it be to check out Makey Makey and let patrons use this Booster Kit?

So what else have we made with it???? Well, that’s kind of a secret.

Beyond the Banana

We had a lot of fun inventing projects for the awesome Makey Makey original and Makey Makey Go in our  upcoming book “The Big Book of Makerspace Projects.” We know you’ll have fun making those projects, but since I can’t share them yet, I worked on this wacky interactive at Ryan Library to include with this review.

Tweet: Go #beyondthebanana with #makeymakey ! #Makerspace resource: http://ctt.ec/U9jb6+ via @gravescolleen

While I was researching Makey Makey Go apps, I stumbled upon Jay’s remix of Eric’s remix of Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean. It’s getting rather late in the school year and our high school students are getting a serious dose of “Senioritis.”To combat senioritis, I worked on creating this MJ display in hopes to motivate my young makers to create their own Makey Makey invention. This interactive relies on pressure sensors that activate when a student “moonwalks” on this moonwalk tutorial foot display. As you dance, the song is played by Makey Makey and Scratch.  I utilized the extra long jumper wires, long alligator clips, and conductive tape to make this happen!

Figuring out how to portray the moonwalk with footprints was the most difficult aspect of this project. Although, making pressure sensors on the floor took me awhile to brainstorm as well. How could I make sure the switches weren’t always touching and activating?

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Later in the week, a teacher 3dprinted a hand for relay practice, but the hand was too small. So I thought…. hmm… how could I use this with my Michael Jackson Makey Makey interactive? I brought out the conductive tape and attached the hand to the table with a piece of rolled duct tape. Then attached the “Go” and remapped it to play the left arrow key.

The students think this is pretty funny and are baffled at how it works. It’s been fun explaining it to them and I hope they get inspired to Makey Makey their own thing!

What would you create if you had Makey Makey Go?

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My Makey Makey Interactive hacked with Makey Makey Go!

Cool Project Ideas

More cool Makey Makey Go projects: from other makers

 

Disclaimer: I did not receive any funding or free swag from Makey Makey for writing this post. I backed the Kickstarter and bought myself and my peeps 3 Gos and the Inventor Packs.  I plan on buying many more for next year to get my students experimenting with building games and hopefully apps!

Research, Google Classroom, and Libraries

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Reader Request: One of my readers, Christina, asked how our teachers are using Google Classroom, so this post is dedicated to answering your question, Christina! Thanks for asking!

christina commented on A Library AND a Makerspace

Recently I read an article discussing how libraries are converting to makerspaces. I found this wording dangerous because I …

I was recently referred to your blog by a co-worker and I am really loving all that you are doing. I’m wondering if you have any elementary peers who are also whipping up a little maker magic for the littles? I’m also interested in how your teachers are usinggoogle classroom. Perhaps a future post in the making?

If you’ve been following my blog, you’ll know that I LOVE Google Apps for Education. Last year, I attempted using Google Hangouts to track major projects like our LEAP student Global picture books where we Skyped with students around their culture.  My 7th graders last year did some live author hangouts with Claire Legrand and Lindsay Cummings during Mr. Wacker’s Dystopia Unit.

But one of my absolute favorite ways to use Google is for paperless classroom activities. I’m hoping to eventually get all of my teachers buy-in on using Google Docs for taking notes when researching. Last year, while Google Classroom was still very new and very shiny, we used Doctopus to make copies of Googledocs Cornell note style. I taught the students how to color code source by changing the text color. This alone made online note taking a dream, but I loved that I could also hyperlink a pathfinder I’d made in S’more. The pathfinder was designed to help direct students to our online databases and give them tips on searching the databases more effectively. Read more about the whole process here.

Last year my 8th graders also embarked on an amazing PBL based on the All Songs Considered Podcast. Their teachers and I created a landing project site for them in Google Sites and we used Sites Maestro to create individual Google Sites for all of the 8th graders.  The students then blogged about music and eventually wrote, recorded, and uploaded their own podcast. You can see the whole collaboration process on this Tackk and read more about the All Songs PBL on this blog post.

At my new school, students are just now getting into utilizing Googledocs and Google Apps for Education.  Because of this, my ITS Leslie and I attempted teaching the bulk of our freshmen how to use and collaborate with Google docs and Google Slides at the beginning of the school year.

As English teachers came in to plan with me this year, I originally showed them this Googledoc I’d used in the past, but I quickly updated it to the new and improved “color-coded by table” Google doc made by none other than the #superlibrarianhubs, Aaron Graves.  (Follow Aaron on Twitter)

Color Coded Googledoc3

Aaron’s document actually makes much more sense to students. Plus, it is more comfortable for teachers who still cling to hand written notes since the table organizes all of the notes together with the correct source. I share the document with the teacher and the teachers “Create a Copy” for each student in Google Classroom. Google Classroom is pretty awesome because it creates a folder in the teacher’s Google Drive called “Classroom.” Teachers can organize their classes and find student work by folder, all just by creating classes in Classroom. It combines Edmodo with a full paperless classroom experience. A teacher can share a note for students to read (much like Edmodo) or create a collaborative document for to students to work on as a class or in groups. Plus, teachers can make students individual copies of assignments. When I started using Googledocs in 2007, I had to create my own folders and rely on students to share with me. If I didn’t want to deal with forgetful students or misnamed documents, I would create documents to share with groups of students. It was quite tedious and time consuming! One of the other great things about Google Classroom is that Classroom titles the document for your students. It includes their name in the title and any thing you create for students is automatically shared with you as the teacher. So you can watch their progress throughout the lesson. I like to share research documents and then look through documents a couple of days into research and “real time”comment on how students are working during class. When they are first exposed to this, they freak out! It really helps hold students accountable.  They cannot lose a GoogleDoc!

Another awesome thing is that since I shared this and I have the “Easy Bib” add-on, when students go to add-ons inside Google docs, it will automatically come up as an option. They’ll have to add it to allow it to function, but once they do that they can easily create citations right inside of their Googledocs! If students are using web resources, they can even go to the native tool “Research” to create citations for web sources all within the Googledoc!

A few librarians on Twitter asked for a copy, so here is a version you can copy for yourself! And I’m working an “Annotated Bibliography” version for an AP course you can make a copy of too!

You can also read about our DIY Chromebook Storage here and a few more tips on Google Hangouts in this Social Media Advocacy post.

How about you? How do you and your teachers use Google Classroom?