Week 10: Makey Makey & Prototype construction

The Meow Meow Cat Makey Makey prototype is mostly complete and is finally functional (just a little more gluing to do!).

Process and problems

The initial concept was for foot controls but I couldn't work out how to make the controls conductive without either operating it barefoot or adding conductive material to each user's shoes (neither ideal).  I was thinking about how to change it to hand controls, make it boppy or something which was a bit disappointing.  I had a chat to Peter (tutor) and he suggested making each foot control out of two dots with a spring (sponge) in between them, one that would be grounded, one connected to the control.  This would remove the need for the user to be connected/grounded to the Makey Makey.  When the user steps on the dot, the two circles connect and complete the circuit.

To help with planning out the prototype, I did a quick sketch of how I wanted to connect the components/wires.

Construction

To make the dots, I printed the colours on adhesive paper and stuck them to thick card.  I cut out the coloured circle and a duplicate of the same size.  To make them conductive, I cut out a smaller circle of alfoil to stick on each circle.  I then cut out sections of sponges to glue around the edges of the circle to make them springy (being careful not to touch the sponge to the alfoil).

I was worried that if the sponge wasn't high enough that the two circles might accidentally touch so chose a dense and high sponge. This proved to be a problem as it made it too hard to make the circles touch on step.

Sponges too high

Next I constructed the bottom layer of circles and connected them to a strip of copper tape connected to a grounding wire.  I had thought about grounding them seperately but it made sense to join them into one.

Four bottom circles connected to grounding wire

As I constructed each step, I used the keyboard input checker at http://www.keyboardtester.com/tester.html to test that set-up was working.

Next I connected the tops by using connective tape to attach the open end to the alfoil and non-conductive tape to hold it down at the edge.

Top and bottom circles connected.

I then sandwiched the top and bottom dots and tested the prototype with the game.  I had a small problem where sometimes multiple controls would fire because the wire ends attached to the Makey Makey were touching each other.  This was fixed with a small amount of electrical tape to seal off the ends.

Now that I know the prototype works, I will finish gluing it together ahead of next week's testing session.