Frequently throughout the year, particularly when Creator's Studio is not in session, I will post here about other projects we have going on throughout campus. One such project, in 3rd grade, is an Operation-style game we create with students while they are studying about the human body. Inspired by Josh Burker's wonderful project on this topic, we use Makey Makeys and Scratch, along with cardboard, clay and conductive tape to build our Operation Games. Students design a body on cardboard boxes, and select what organs or parts of the body they want to operate on. They cut holes for those organs, line the holes with conductive copper tape, and bring all the "wires" back to a central location for connection to the Makey Makey. We use a set of conductive chopsticks as the operating tool of choice, which is also connected to the makey makey. Students make their organs out of clay.
While this project works well at school, we realized last year that in order for students to enjoy their completed project at home, we had to design an alternative circuit. We cannot provide Makey Makeys for every student, and it seems unreasonable to expect parents to purchase one (although now with Makey Makey Go the idea is more realistic). Therefore, we designed a simple circuit by adding a coin cell battery, an LED and wire. When students make contact with the rim of any of their operation spaces, the LED lights up.
An alternative to this set up is to use a buzzer instead of an LED (keeping in mind the buzzer must be rated for 3V), but we felt this was a nicer, quieter option. You can see the final piece in the last row of photos below.
While this project works well at school, we realized last year that in order for students to enjoy their completed project at home, we had to design an alternative circuit. We cannot provide Makey Makeys for every student, and it seems unreasonable to expect parents to purchase one (although now with Makey Makey Go the idea is more realistic). Therefore, we designed a simple circuit by adding a coin cell battery, an LED and wire. When students make contact with the rim of any of their operation spaces, the LED lights up.
An alternative to this set up is to use a buzzer instead of an LED (keeping in mind the buzzer must be rated for 3V), but we felt this was a nicer, quieter option. You can see the final piece in the last row of photos below.
