Makey Makey

A Makey Makey board used during a hack-a-thon in Mexico City.

Makey Makey: An Invention Kit for Everyone is an electronic invention tool and toy that allows users to connect everyday objects to computer programs.[1] Using a circuit board, alligator clips, and a USB cable, the toy uses closed loop electrical signals to send the computer either a keyboard stroke or mouse click signal. This function allows the Makey Makey to work with any computer program or webpage that accepts keyboard or mouse click inputs.

Makey Makey Kickstarter

Makey Makey was started through a Kickstarter campaign that raised over $500,000. Following its initial funding on Kickstarter, Makey Makey was written about in Mashable,[2] Wired, and New Scientist,[3] among others.

Product background

Originally created as an academic and artistic project by two MIT students, Jay Silver and Eric Rosenbaum, the Makey Makey was produced by research done at MIT Media Lab's Lifelong Kindergarten.[4] Prior to creating the Makey Makey, Jay Silver and Eric Rosenbaum also worked on creative tools and invention kits such as Drawido,[5] Singing Fingers,[6] and Scratch.[7]

The first prototype for Makey Makey was created in 2010 and tested at a workshop at San Francisco Exploratorium where participants used the product to create a game called "Drum Pants" that used a beach ball as a controller and water buckets as the foot-pads to play the console game, Dance Dance Revolution.[8] The Second Prototype was created in 2011 and 2012 and tested with interactive design specialists, after which the final prototype was tested at the Maker Faire in San Francisco in 2012 before the end of the Kickstarter campaign.[9]

Awards and recognition

  • (2014) Inducted into The Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection[10]
  • (2014) Popular Science's "Best of Toy Fair"[11]

References

  1. ↑ MaKey MaKey - How would YOU interact with your computer? on YouTube
  2. ↑ Erickson, Christine. "Rejoice! Now You Can Use a Banana as a Keyboard". Mashable.
  3. ↑ "DIY circuit turns your alphabet soup into a keyboard".
  4. ↑ Kottoor, Naveena (7 June 2012). "MIT students' invention turns bananas into keyboard" – via www.bbc.com.
  5. ↑ "Redirecting to Drawdio". web.media.mit.edu.
  6. ↑ "Projects" (PDF). Eric Rosenbaum.
  7. ↑ "Scratch - Imagine, Program, Share". scratch.mit.edu.
  8. ↑ "Kickstarter invention kit turns bananas into pianos, dogs into spacebars, Wired (May 15, 2012)".
  9. ↑ Senese, Mike. "10 Insanely Cool Things We Saw at Maker Faire (Plus 5 Videos)".
  10. ↑ "MoMA - Welcoming New Humble Masterpieces into MoMA's Collection". www.moma.org.
  11. ↑ "The 10 Best Toys From The 2014 Toy Fair".
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