Week 5 Objective
This week, we invite you to try one of two different activities. Toy Take Apart is a low-tech deconstruction activity with possibilities for reconstruction. It is immediately accessible to anyone with an old mechanical toy lying around. MaKey MaKey is a high-tech tool to add computation and coding to your tinkering constructions. It is like a bridge between the physical and digital worlds in ways that are only limited by your imagination. In this week’s videos, Gever Tulley, founder of the Tinkering School, talks about his affinity for taking things apart. You’ll also hear from Jay Silver and Eric Rosenbaum, creators of MaKey MaKey, and from their mentor Mitchel Resnick, who discusses the importance of tinkering, sharing, construction, and remixing in the digital realm.
Resources
Computer as Paintbrush, by Mitch Resnick
Lifelong Kindergarten, by Mitch Resnick
Scratch - https://scratch.mit.edu/
My projects with Makey Makey and Scratch
I love the interactive paintings and murals. The example presented by Eric Rosenbaum in the course vídeo is great, not only for his friend's lovely acrylic painting but the adaptation of the two Makey Makey, with an exceptional sound - https://youtu.be/wkPt9MYqDW0.
I love it and tried to make a painting connected to a scratch programme with a few clips of music I've edited in Soundation.
Unfortunately, the sounds don't play properly, they play with distortion and I'm afraid it's a problem of connections.
It's an acrylic geometrical painting with copper tape and in the back of the canvas I've made wire connections which go through the canvas covered by the copper tape.
Makey Makey cables are connected in the back to the computer programme in Scratch. When one touches the copper tape it produces a series of sounds.
I was very curious to know how Eric Rosenbaum had made the connections since you don't have a clue when looking at the painting, and I realized that he had used some nails or pins.
There are many interesting musical paintings like the one of Ivan Guaderrama - https://youtu.be/f8XHdEsSY-8
The article «Tinkering, Learning & Equity in the After-School Setting» is a great article, but I think that all that is described should happen inside school as well.
Eric Rosenbaum Musical Paintings
The first video of Week 5 is played by Eric Rosenbaum's the partner of Jay Silver, inventors of Makey Makey, and lately he has dedicated himself to musical paintings. One of the paintings we can find in Youtube is a beautiful acrylic painting a friend made and Rosenbaum explains how he adapted 2 Makey Makey and built the complicated circuit. I was very pleased with this course video which allowed to see the back of the canvas and all the pins and wires. The painting has a 3D look and a wave movement that is very suggestive to touch and play music.
