Wipe Your Feet Please

Having had a fall in my classroom due to a wet floor caused by students entering on a wet day without wiping their feet, I thought it would be fun to give them a Makey Makey reminder. The challenge was to program the message in a way that would attract the students attention and also to make the video to show the reminder in progress.

Supplies

Cardboard (three layer board)

Makey Makey Classic

Aluminium Foil

Bubble Wrap

Glue Stick

6 Rubber bands

Two colours of wire to extend the Makey Makey aligator clips

Scratch account

Step 1: Step 1: Prepare Cardboard

Cut two pieces of cardboard to the size of a doorway. My pieces were 1 metre in length and 30cm wide.

Cover each piece of cardboard with aluminium foil using a glue stick to cover the cardboard. An extended piece of foil was bent over and glued to the back on one end.

Cut two pieces of the bubble wrap to the size of the card. I cut three large squares out of each piece of the wrap allowing contact to be made between the foil on the top and bottom.

Glue the flat side of the bubble wrap to the aluminium foil.

Place the two pieces of card foil agains foil and hold together with rubber bands.

This makes the switch that triggers the Makey Makey to connect to the computer.

Step 2: Step 2: Making Connections

Using two Makey Makey alligator clips connect one to each piece of card, ensuring that the clip is on the foil (on the end where you have foil on the back of the card) not the bubble wrap.

On the other end of the alligator clips clamp a piece of wire long enough to reach the table where the Makey Makey and computer will be placed.

Clamp another alligator clip to the other end of the wires. I chose to use red for live and green for earth.

The Alligator clip is then connected to the Makey Makey with the live wire connecting to space and the earth wire to the earth bar.

Connect the Makey Makey to the usb of the computer. You are now ready to start programming.

Step 3: Step 3: Programming the Project

Open Scratch at https://scratch.mit.edu/ and create an account if you do not have one.

Select the Makey Makey tools from the extension tools area and also add text to speech tools if so desired.

Select your background.I selected an interior that looked a little like a school hall.

Select a sprite that suits your project. I selected a sprite that had a number of costumes. These showed different movements.

Select sounds and choose music that will suit your project.

Choosing the Makey Makey Event that starts the program with a connection to Space. I selected the speech blocks as shown and typed in my message.

Then programmed the movement which started when Space was connected.

The programming was fairly complex but great fun.

Step 4: STEP 4: Final Set Up

I placed the cardboard switch under the mat just inside the door to the classroom and the computer on an adjacent desk.

When the students came in the circuit was completed and the message was spoken loudly enough for them to hear.

Their reactions were hilarious but the message was clear and they agreed that it was effective.