Adventures with Makey Makey GO!
Chris Rybicki 2016
It all started around May of 2015. Reading some tech blogs online, I had discovered a kickstarter for what seemed like an extremely unique product - the Makey Makey GO. For those unfamiliar, kickstarters are campaigns on the internet where creators with unique product ideas try to get people to fund the production of cool products. Makey Makey GO was one of these projects, and it captured my imagination so much that I had to back it. On the campaign, it showed people doing tons of silly activities like typing with a donut, playing a harp made of leaves, playing flappy bird with jello, and more. So after they reached more than $200,000, it went into production, and so I waited.
Come December, the Makey Makey GO finally arrives in the mail. Excitedly I brought it to my help desk class in school, and everyone was surprised by what it could do. We tried to recreate some of the ideas I had seen, as well as some new ones, all with the small USB-sized device. While I had backed the project assuming the wiring might be difficult, or that I would have to install some software first on my computer, it turned out that none of this was required. The only wiring required was some small hook ups between the device and the objects we used (like a banana) using easy-to-use alligator clips. While there are possibly unlimited uses for this, I definitely thing showing this to kids is especially fun because of how interactive and tangible it makes technology experiences.
If you'd like to see more about the Makey Makey GO and how it works, along with some special tips for using it, just check out this presentation I made about it! I go over what the kit includes if you're interested in getting it, and some of my first experiences using it and other useful info.
Come December, the Makey Makey GO finally arrives in the mail. Excitedly I brought it to my help desk class in school, and everyone was surprised by what it could do. We tried to recreate some of the ideas I had seen, as well as some new ones, all with the small USB-sized device. While I had backed the project assuming the wiring might be difficult, or that I would have to install some software first on my computer, it turned out that none of this was required. The only wiring required was some small hook ups between the device and the objects we used (like a banana) using easy-to-use alligator clips. While there are possibly unlimited uses for this, I definitely thing showing this to kids is especially fun because of how interactive and tangible it makes technology experiences.
If you'd like to see more about the Makey Makey GO and how it works, along with some special tips for using it, just check out this presentation I made about it! I go over what the kit includes if you're interested in getting it, and some of my first experiences using it and other useful info.
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