Makey Makey
Maire Tuul, TLÜ, Estonia
Table of content:
- Introduction (what is Makey Makey)
- Who and what have written on this topic? What are the main findings, conclusions?
- Recommendations for teachers.
- References
1. Introduction
Makey Makey was developed by MIT researchers Jay Silver and Eric Rosenbaum together with SparkFun Electronics. (Rogers, Paay, Brereton, Vaisutis, Marsden & Vetere, 2014). But what it is the Makey Makey? As Beginner’s Mind Collective and Shaw (2012) have written, it is a platform for improvising tangible user interfaces. They clarify that “Makey Makey is a device that implements the Human Interface Device (HID) protocol, which allows it to send keyboard and mouse events to a computer without installing drivers or other software. The user connects everyday objects and natural materials to Makey Makey, in order to create a tangible user interface that controls any software running on a computer.” According to Silver (2014) “Makey Makey catalyzes people to think of the world (the digital conductive or insulative on/off connectedness of objects) as a user interface to a modern computer”.
As such, it is a device that promises to turn anything into a key or mouse button. The principle is clipping two objects to the Makey Makey board, which then makes a circuit, and Makey Makey sends the computer a keyboard message. It is easy to handle, compatible with all existing computer program that normally receives input from the keyboard or mouse, and it does not require the user to program or to assemble electronics. Due to its simplicity, people without technical skills can still use it – it is possible to construct a working interface with a physical input controlling a digital output in under a minute. (Beginner’s Mind Collective & Shaw, 2012.)
This open-source hardware micro-controller built off of the Arduino platform. Each kit consists of Makey Makey board and two bundles of wires. The wires in the first bundle end in alligator clips, which attach to the top of the board, while the wires in the second bundle end in normal points that plug into the pins on the underside of the board. Sansing (2015, 12) explains, how it works: “You connect the Makey Makey to your computer with a USB cord. Then you clip your alligator-pin wires to spots on the board labeled with input names—up, down, right, left, space, and click—that correspond to keys on your keyboard or buttons on your mouse. Then you clip at least one more wire to the “earth” bar at the bottom of the Makey Makey, and you’re good to go. So long as you connect one of your input wires to your earth wire through any kind of conductive material, the Makey Makey will tell your computer to “press” that button. Connect the “space” wire to the “earth” wire, and your computer will “press” the space key.” In depth instructions of Makey Makey can be found from Sansing’s (2015) article “Test-Driving the MaKey MaKey. The Arduino kit makes a game of learning. Banana pianos are just a start.” Also, if you are interested, then you can read Silver`s paper (2014) which contains a good overview about Makey Makey process of inventing and there is also the story about inventing Rawdio Invention Kit.
2. Literature review and findings
Although the using Makey Makey is relatively easy, I found only a couple of articles which have studied its effect on learning. The first article by Lin and Chang (2014) gave an overview about using Makey Makey to increase training motivation of physically handicapped (Cerebral palsy) children. In the second article Rogers, Paay, Brereton, Vaisutis, Marsden and Vetere (2014) gave an overview of a study that focused on investigating how retirees learn, construct and play with the Makey Makey inventor’s toolkit, and what this hands-on experience suggests to them about future technology uses and experiences. Following will be a brief overview of these studies.
In their study, Lin and Chang (2014) employed Flash- and Scratch-based multimedia by using a Makey Makey-based task system to increase the motivation level of children with cerebral palsy to perform physical activities. This study followed single-case design using ABAB models in which A indicated the baseline and B indicated the intervention. The experiment lasted one and a half months, the participants in this experiment were two kids: a 5-year and 9-month-old girl with severe physical disabilities with cerebral palsy convulsions, and a 3-year and 8-month-old boy with moderate multiple disabilities with both legs weak. Experiment was carried out as follows:
„Makey Makey was connected to a notebook computer on which the interactive Flash- and Scratch-base multimedia were installed with Microsoft Window 7. The Makey Makey connected with one participant and conductive materials. At the beginning, there is a prepared multimedia show on the screen for 5 s, then on the pause situation. When the participant touches the conductive material again, the multimedia plays for 5 s, after which the multimedia pauses. When the participant touches the conductive material, it creates a conductive loop, which then starts the play function. Because the participants are two children with physical disabilities, and they respond more slowly than normal children, the operating process time was set to 1 min. The intervention materials design by Flash and Scratch technology to set up the multimedia pauses automatically every 5 s, and so the multimedia could not play anything unless the participant touches the conductive material. The goal was to identify how many times the participant applied his/her physical strength to touch any part of the conductive material as a physical activity.” (Lin & Chang, 2014, 1964-1965.) Experiment had 4 cycles: regular training cycle was changed to training with use of Makey Makey. During different sessions, the amount of correct movements per minute were counted. It was found, that both children made more correct movments with the use of Makey Makey technology than during normal training sessions. Authors concluded, that Makey Makey offers many opportunities to encourage developement and increase motivation in children with special needs. They suggest that teachers, therapists and parents could use the ideas from the experiment and go even further to make regular excercises more interesting.
The fact that anyone, who is even remotely interested in Makey Makey, can manage using it is clearly illustrated in a study by Rogers et al (2014) in which the participants were retirees aged over 60. Researchers ran a series of workshops where groups of two to three retirees used the Makey Makey inventor’s toolkit. Workshops were usually two to three hours long and consisted of two parts: at first there was training, in which the groups were instructed to learn, assemble, create and play with the MaKey MaKey toolkit. This was followed by having an in-depth discussion over tea and cake. The researchers asked the participants to think about the future and suggest ideas for new technologies. This study showed, that retirees handled using Makey Makey very well, were interested in it and maid many suggestions for using it outside workshops. Although the retirees main focus was on how other people (for example their children or grandchildren) could use these tools, they enjoyed every activity included in the workshop and it was evident that mutual discovery and activities helped build their team spirit. As mentioned previously, the study by Rogers et al (2014) supported the understanding that Makey Makey is suitable for use for a very large audience – it provides the joy of discovery to both, the young and old, independently from their technological prowess.
3. Recommendations for teachers.
Despite the fact that it can take time to figure out how to use a Makey Makey in class activities, the rewards are definitely worth it. Studying will be more fun and interesting, so the school turns into a place where students and teachers alike want to come back to. If you want to know more about Makey Makey visit the webpage http://www.makeymakey.com, there are many good ideas, lesson plans and videos for you.
4. References
Beginner’s Mind Collective & Shaw, D. (2012). Makey Makey: Improvising Tangible and Nature-Based User Interfaces. In TEI ’12 Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction, 367-370.
Hancock, C., Hichar, C., Holl-Jensen, C., Kraus, K., Mozafari, C. & Skutlin, K. (2013). Bibliocircuitry and the Design of the Alien Everyday. Textual Cultures, 8(1), 72-100.
https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/textual/article/view/5051/4649
Lin, C. Y. & Chang, Y. M. (2014). Increase in physical activities in kindergarten children with cerebral palsy by employing MaKey–MaKey-based task systems. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 35(9), 1963-1969.
Sansing, C. (2012). Test-Driving the MaKey MaKey. The Arduino kit makes a game of learning. Banana pianos are just a start. School Library Journal, april 2015, 12-13.
http://www.slj.com/2015/04/opinion/test-drive/slj-reviews-the-makey-makey-test-drive/
Silver, J. S. (2014). Lens × Block. World as Construction Kit. [PhD thesis]. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
http://web.media.mit.edu/~silver/Lens-Block-Jay-Silver-PhD-Thesis.pdf
Rogers, Y., Paay, J., Brereton, M., Vaisutis, K., Marsden, G. & Vetere, F. (2014). Never Too Old: Engaging Retired People Inventing the Future with MaKey MaKey. CHI 2014, April 26 – May 01, Toronto, Canada.