On Monday, the 10th of February, we started with a tinkering workshop. During this workshop we were introduced to the MakeyMakey and the programme Scratch. Combining these tools allows you to build creative interfaces.
After some experimenting with the tools we were tasked to come up with and build our own project. The requirements were that it had to be a physical interface and it had to be inspired by the Olympic Games.In the beginning we had different ideas but they were all a bit to big due to spacial limitations. After some more brainstorming we trimmed it down to a smaller set up. The idea was to have two people compete in a puzzle game and the one who finished first would win a trophy. The video below shows what the end result looked like (explanation below video).
As you see in the video the goal was to move the hoop along the track without touching it. A task much harder than it looks like. If you touch the track with the hoop, a sound will play to indicate this.
How it was made
We created a electrical circuit by connecting the track to the plus side of the MakeyMakey and the hoop to the ground side. So when the hoop and track were connected the circuit would be closed. In order to play the sound we made a Scratch script that would play a sound whenever the MakeyMakey would send the signal that the circuit was closed.
Also we attached the trophy to the MakeyMakey and made it play the sound of an applauding audience when someone picked it up. We did this in much the same way we did for the hoop and track part.
At the end of the workshop we had to present our project. It was a great succes as you can see in the video below.