Create a Makey Makey tile story teller out of cardboard!

Each tile you place in the board interacts in a unique way with a scratch project. It could be a fun maker project for your classroom, or a nice way for younger children to play and engage with technology.

Supplies

Cardboard sheets
Knife
Copper Tape
Bare Conductive Paint
Masking tape
Crocodile Clips
Makey Makey Board
Themed print out for your tiles
Glue stick

Step 1: Getting Started - Creating the Board

Start off by creating your cardboard sheet that the tiles fit into.

Take a large sheet of card and split it into two equal sheets
Create your tile shape on paper. Make sure it's a unique shape that will only fit in one way round. This will be important later
Carefully cut out the tile shape from one of the sheets, and set it aside.
On your other cardboard sheet draw out your tile shape in pencil
Over the top of the pencil line add some patches of Bare Conductive paint. Great big patches of copper tape or tin foil should work just as well if you don't have any of the paint.
When it's dried, add strips of copper tape. These should go from each strip to one edge of the card. I find that connecting them all from one side makes your life so much easier when you're connecting your Makey Makey Board.
You could also add little descriptors to each patch so you know which one you want to connect to each port on the Makey Makey
When all that's done, tape your top piece (with the hole!) to the wired up sheet!

Step 2: Keep Going - Making the Tiles

The tiles are what make this project so much fun! From this design you can create 5 tiles to work in a set. So far I've created about 4 different sets to play with different Scratch projects!

Cut out 5 identical tiles from your original design. It helps if they're ever so slightly smaller so they go in and out easier. One other addition I made was to cut a notch out of each one, so that you can pop each tile out with your finger.
Now for the really tricky bit! On the back of the tile you need to add strips of copper tape. These will connect your earth paint patch to each of your other patches of Conductive Paint.
This means that each tile will have a different configuration of copper tape on the back, so be careful when you're doing your layouts.
Make sure that the ONLY connect with the path you want them to, and that they're not over lapping with another paint patch.
When you've done all 5, flip them over and add some designs to them!
In the two pictured I've gone for a habitats game and a numbers challenge for my really young learners.

Step 3: You're Nearly There - Connect and Play!

Now you've finished creating your board and your tiles you're ready to go!

Connect your Makey Makey to the side of the card and load up a Scratch project to work with it. I've made an example here for my Habitats game if you want to try it then adapt it.