Giant Coordinate Art With Makey Makey

This is inspired partly by Colleen's Pixel Sketch project on the Makey Makey blog.

We used the Makey Makey pixel art guide, and jumbo-sized it. We have an 18x18 grid that can be drawn on like a human Etch-a-Sketch, using Scratch, the online Makey Makey app, or a custom Python program, for older students. For an 18x18 grid, this tutorial uses the back of the board (it would be ideal with the new backpack kits).

A link to the Python program is included - you won't need any Python knowledge to run it.

You'll need Makey Makey v1.2 or later to remap the back of the board.

You will need:

• 2m x 2m plastic sheet
• Aluminium foil tape (at least 36 metres - two 18m layers)
• Non-conductive double-sided tape
• Two Makey Makeys v1.2 or later
• Alligator clips and jumper wires (for the backs of the Makey Makeys)

A cheap grounding/earth strap like this is useful, but optional.

Lie the plastic sheeting flat - it's important to get this as flat as possible to start with, to minimise folds/pulling when you attach the foil.

With your aluminium foil tape, cut enough strips (we used 18) and space them out evenly. The foil tape can be very sticky, so we cut and lined up the strips before sticking and peeling! It's a good idea to let the foil overhang slightly at one edge, to give you space to attach the alligator clips.

With 18 inputs, there should be one Makey Makey board for each axis. Carefully attach an alligator clip to the edge of each foil strip. Taking each wire, in order, attach them to the inputs on your Makey Makey - including the WASD and mouse-click jumper inputs on the back of the board (collage photo).

We used this order: UP -> Down -> Left -> Right -> Space -> Click -> WASD... -> Mouse inputs. It doesn't matter which end you start with, but make sure that you attach the strips in order, left-to-right or right-to-left.

In the back-of-the-board photos, only a couple of inputs are attached. By the end, you should have each of your foil strips connected to a Makey Makey input.

It's important that the two conductive foil layers never make contact. Use double-sided tape to make another layer, crossing the first layer, to make a grid. If you're short on tape, you could place dotted/dashed segments of tape across the path, instead of making a solid line.

Tip: As with the foil layer, it's a good idea to plan/space-out the double-sided tape strips before peeling and sticking!

Second layer of foil strips

Carefully measure and cut another set of foil strips. Don't peel the sticky backing! As with the first layer, it's a good idea to have a slight overhang at one edge, leaving some space to attach alligator clips.

Attach these foil strips on top of the double-sided tape layer. It's important that the foil doesn't touch the first conductive layer beneath - they should be insulated by the double-sided tape, and the upper layer's intact paper backing.

Attach the second Makey Makey

Attach another set of alligator clips to the new strips. Connect these to your second Makey Makey, just like you did with the first layer.

Makey Makey keys can be remapped - go to https://makeymakey.com/pages/remap and follow the on-screen prompts or the instructions here.

The screenshot above shows how we remapped one of our Makey Makeys to represent the letters A-R on the keyboard.

First Makey Makey: Remap to the letter keys A-R

Second Makey Makey: Up, down, left, right, space, letters S-U, number keys 0-9

To draw on the grid, students will need to be connected to the Earth terminal on the bottom of each Makey Makey. Use one alligator wire to connect the two Earth terminals to each other (see photo). If you have a grounding strap, connect this to one of the Makey Makey Earths. Alternatively, use a normal alligator wire, and hold the metal terminal between your fingers.

You can daisy-chain wires/straps together to make a longer Earth strap (second photo).

Start Drawing!

Take your shoes off. When you walk on the grid, and cross the horizontal and vertical strips, you'll trigger an input on each Makey Makey. The app and the Python program below are designed to read two inputs at a time, and work out the coordinate where you've stepped.

Tip: We found it works best in bare feet. The gorilla suit is optional...

Tip: Make sure you're holding the Earth strap/wire, making contact with the metal part.

Option A - Use the Makey Makey App

For grids up to 8x8, Makey Makey has a Pixel Sketch app that you can use.

Option B - Use the custom Python program

You don't need to be a Python expert! There's a basic Python program (using Pygame) that I've written as a template. If you're not a programmer, you can run the program as-is, and use it to draw. Or, if you've got Python experience, you might want to look at the Pygame drawing docs, and try to add your own features, like changing colours.

You can play the Python program on Replit (hosted online), or if you've got Python installed locally, download the source code below (main.py).