FHES Welcome Mat With Makey Makey & Scratch

I wanted to have a way to welcome my students to the media center. This solved this problem. Every time someone enters, they hear a welcome message from me!

Supplies

Materials needed:

scissors
cereal box
aluminum foil
tape
4 rubber bands (2 smaller & 2 larger)
Makey Makey kit
2 alligator clips
Scratch coding website link
welcome mat or small rug
computer with internet capabilities

Step 1: Preparing Cereal Box

Cut the cereal box so that you have 4 pieces – the front and back panel & the two side panels.

Step 2: Cut Aluminum Foil

Cut 4 pieces of aluminum foil – one for each piece of the cereal box. The piece of foil for the front & back of the cereal box needs to be longer that that piece, in order to wrap around the ends.

Step 3: Prepare Top & Bottom Pressure Plates

Wrap the front and back panels of the cereal box and tape the foil to the back of the piece.

Step 4: Prepare the Springs

Using the 2 narrow side panels, cut 3 rectangles that will fold inside each other. Put the folded rectangles inside each other, smallest to largest. You may need to use a rubber band to hold the springs together.

Step 5: Prepare the Pressure Plates

With the springs placed on one of the large cereal box pieces (as pictured above), place the other cereal box piece on top, with the aluminum foil facing each other.

Step 6: Attach Alligator Clips

Now it’s time to connect the alligator clips. Clip one to the top right piece and one to the bottom left piece.

Step 7: Connect Makey Makey

Now, you need to attach the alligator clips to the Makey Makey. One clip needs to connect to “Earth” and one clip needs to connect to “space” (or whatever you choose to control Scratch).

Step 8: Connect Makey Makey

Connect Makey Makey to your computer. Navigate to the Scratch coding website (http://www.scratch.mit.edu). Once you get to the website, watch the following video to see how to record your message for the “Welcome Mat”.

How to record audio in Scratch 3.0 and assign to a specific key on your keyboard - YouTube

Record your welcome message you would like students to hear as they enter your library. Here is a link to my recording.

FHES Welcome on Scratch (mit.edu)