Make Skeeball-inspired Games Using Pizza Boxes, Party Favors, and a PC

Step 6 Control a computer program

You can start by thinking about what you want each hole to represent. In traditional Skeeball, each hole is worth a certain number of points. People play to achieve a high score. In an example I explain below, the objective is to make a pizza.

There are many computer programs that let you trigger events when a person presses a particular key on a keyboard. I used the Scratch programming environment. It is available at http://scratch.mit.edu as a free download. (Part of my role on the Scratch design team is to make new ways for people to interface with Scratch in a more physical way - extending the keyboard is one of many ways.)

You can download the pizza_overflow project on the Scratch website at: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/millner/350143.
The page includes notes about the project and a link to download it's code. You can learn about how to get started using Scratch from support materials on the website if you'd like to extend this example, modify it, or make your own.

To make the pizza_overflow project work with your pizza box Skeeball controller's keyboard, there are parts of the program that you might need to adjust. The program contains three command blocks that allow you to select which key a particular part of the program will respond to. I set the default project to use the numbers 1,2, and 3 for each topping. In Step 5, you connected each hole of your pizza box Skeeball controller to a number (or letter) on your keyboard. Please adjust the Scratch command in the image below to your keys. Do so for the sauce, cheese, and topping object.