Step 1: Idea

My 16 year old son is non-verbal and working on identifying emotions. I wanted to create a device he could use to communicate how he's feeling.

This could also be used as a morning check in for SEL.

Step 2: Making the Board

The first thing I did was choose the emotions and found corresponding pictures to put on the board. (photo credits: pixabay.com, pxhere.com, pixy.org) I glued the picture and labels onto a piece of folded over cardstock and then cut between each picture up to the fold so that it would create flaps. I then wrapped a small piece of aluminum foil around the bottom of each flap and glued it down.

Then I cut one long strip of aluminum foil and attached it to the bottom of the other side of the folded cardstock to be the "earth." I attached a wire to this strip and attached the other end to "earth" on the Makey Makey board.

Then I attached one alligator clip to each emotion flap, and the other end to buttons on the Makey Makey board.

Step 3: Programming in Scratch and Connecting to Makey Makey

In Scratch, I programmed a sound for each corresponding emotion,and background to go with it. Then I attached it to a button that the MM board could read. For example, when the space button is pressed for "calm" you see a beach picture and hear an ocean sound along with the words "I feel calm." Then I attached the space button wire to the picture of the beach on the communication board I made. When you press the "calm" flap down, the aluminum foil flaps will connect and trigger the code in Scratch. Then I repeated this process for all of the emotion flaps.