Thrifting with Makey Makey

According to Punya Mishra and The Deep-Play Research Group’s article entitled Rethinking Technology & Creativity in the 21st Century: Crayons are the Future (2012), “It is important for us as educators to explore the relationship between technology and creativity, particularly in educational contexts. Both technology and creativity in education are complex topics, which have confounded many legitimate attempts to find useful approaches to integrating them into educational settings.” It is important to integrate technology use in the classroom in new an innovative ways. The most obvious use of technology, like computers and iPads, aren’t the only ways that technology can be integrated into the classroom. The repurposing of items with the use of technology tools allows for students and educators to be creative and explore new possibilities within the already set curriculum.

For my CEP 811 course I was asked to use the Makey Makey kit, a repurposed item, and selected curriculum to create a prototype that can be used in my future instruction. As I was playing with this kit I tried to think about how I could use it in my daily instruction. I instantly thought about my 3rd grade mathematics class and tried to focus on a topic that I could use this kit for. My students love to answer multiple choice questions in class using personal whiteboards. I have students write the letter they think is connected to the correct answer on their whiteboard and reveal it all at once. It is a kinesthetic activity they enjoy as well as a competition.

During this “play” time, I decided I wanted to use the Makey Makey kit to have students answer multiple choice questions digitally. This is a use that will definitely go along with my Eureka math curriculum and is something that will engage my students. I knew this kit used the arrow keys for up, down, left, right, space, and click, but I needed the arrows to do a different job. I needed the arrow keys to type the letters A, B, C, D. I used the instruction manual to reassign the arrows to the four different letters. The reassigning of the letters was very challenging. It took me three tries to figure out how to change the programming of the kit.

After reassigning the letters I started to work on the repurposed materials that could be used for this project. I chose four pointer magnets from my basement. After several attempts I realized that the magnets were not working because they were not the appropriate conductors. They could not conduct the electrical current from the Makey Makey Kit to the computer where the letters would be typed on the Microsoft Word processor.

I then chose to repurposed the coffee Kcups from my kitchen as the A, B, C, D keys because they were conductors made of plastic. Plastic is a great conductor for electrical currents to make a full circuit. This is not something that is noted in the manual so I had to do trial and error before I realized this is the right material to use for this prototype. After hooking up the wires to the Makey Makey kit and the coffee Kcups the prototype worked! I was able to type out all four letters on the Microsoft Word processor using the tops of the coffee Kcups. Now my students are able to tap on the correct coffee Kcup to answer the multiple choice question in class. They will no longer use the whiteboards and expo markers. I could even incorporate this kit into my Class Dojo or Google Classroom as a way to share responses with the whole class.

Image by Kaylie Quimby

Here are the steps on how to create the prototype yourself.

Materials:

Makey Makey Kit
Laptop
Microsoft Word processor
Kcups
sticky notes

Instructions:

Buy the Makey Makey kit from https://makeymakey.com/. This kit costs $49.95 and comes with the following pieces: Makey Makey Board, 7 alligator cables, 6 white wires, and a USB cord.
Log onto your laptop and open up your Microsoft Word processor.
Plug board into computer using USB cord.
Close up any pop-up screens on the laptop.
Open up a web browser and type https://makeymakey.com/remap/ into the search bar to reassign the arrows to the letters A, B, C, D.
1. Pick the “Makey Makey Classic”.
2. Press “Start”.
3. Use one alligator clip to connect the up arrow to the down arrow and another alligator clip to connect the left arrow to the right arrow then plug in the Makey Makey.
4. Hold “Earth” with one hand and press arrows with the other hand on the Makey Makey board to navigate. Press “Click” to select the four letters. See the what letters I placed on each arrow in the picture below.
5. Success! The letters have been realigned to the arrows. Close out the window in the browser and open up the Microsoft Word processor.
Connect one alligator clip to the up arrow and connect the other end of the clip to the coffee Kcup with the “A” sticky note.
Connect another alligator clip to the right arrow and connect the other end of the clip to the coffee Kcup with the “B” sticky note.
Connect the third alligator clip to the down arrow and connect the other end of the clip to the coffee Kcup with the “C” sticky note.
Connect the fourth alligator clip to the left arrow and connect the other end of the clip to the coffee Kcup with the “D” sticky note.
Finally, clip the fifth and final alligator clip to the “Earth” part of the Makey Makey board and hold the end in your hand.
Flip to the Microsoft Word processor and start typing using the coffee Kcups.
Image by Kaylie Quimby