Introduction: Play Catchy Ball With Makey Makey and Circuit Scribe

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About: Currently a delightful blue-haired(formerly purple-haired) minion at Bongohive. Artsy? I guess. But my codes still a mess. Learning all I can with arduino and loving it.

So the first thing I thought when I saw kids using the Makey Makey with Scratch was “Hey you could totally make this work with Stencyl”. And the fact that we had both the Makey Makey and Circuit Scribe at our disposal made me definitely want to take advantage of real world interactions with games.

So this is what I came up with that night. A game where you can catch virtual balls by moving a basket on your desk. Right now it just takes advantage of the conductive ink to make sections on a piece of paper where you place the Makey Makey tin and the basket appears in a selected location on the screen. This Instructable will not show you how to make the game (I might make an Instructable for that later).

Here’s what you’ll need:

  • Makey Makey and USB adaptor
  • Makey Makey container or any metal container
  • Circuitscribe conductive ink pen
  • Paper/Cardboard
  • 4 Alligator clips
  • 1 strip of foil
  • A magnet (a fridge magnet will work)

Software:

  • Flash Player
  • Stencyl (if you're making your own game)

You can download the Flash game here

Attachments

Step 1: Create Your Surface

Us your conductive ink pen to make three squiggly long lines about 3 to 5 inches apart depending on the size of your paper. The lines should run to the edge of the page where you'll connect your alligator clips.

Step 2: Adapt Your Makey Makey Container

Wrap a strip of foil taught across the container and fold it over the edges. Place a magnet inside the Makey Makey tin, right in the middle. Then slot a coin or two in under the foil to be held in place by the magnet. The coins allow for better contact between the container and the conductive ink strips.

Step 3: Connect to the Makey Makey

Connect the Makey Makey container to Earth. Then connect the left, centre and right strips of conductive ink to the Makey Makey's LEFT, DOWN and RIGHT keyboard controls respectively.

Step 4: Plug and Play

The Makey Makey should be super easy to get working. Just plug it in. Everything's already mapped for you. Catchy Ball is also already mapped to the keys LEFT, RIGHT and DOWN. So you can try it on your keyboard too.

What's your best time?