Makey Makey Scratch Sleep Sounds

My eight year old son has a very challenging time staying asleep in his bed all night. He often wakes in the middle of the night due to nightmares. He then runs to my room to get reassurance in order to fall back to sleep. I designed this touch pad Sleep Sound Soother to help him "self soothe" in order to fall back to sleep by himself.

Supplies:

• Makey Makey
• Scratch MIT
• aluminum foil (or conductive tape)
• cardboard strip
• scissors
• glue stick
• printed images

SCRATCH Program for Sleep Sound Soother

1. Cut a strip of cardboard and score down the middle of the horizontal length.

2. Fold the cardboard along the scored line. This creates a cardboard flap which will be used as a pressure sensor.

3. Use scissors to cut slits on the top flap. I made 5 flaps (mommy's voice, rain, crickets, ocean waves, and a STOP button).

4. Cut a long strip of aluminum foil and use your glue stick to glue the strip across the length of the bottom flap. This will be what connects your Makey Makey to "EARTH."

5. Cut 5 small strips of aluminum foil and glue each one to the inside of the top flaps. These strips need to be lined up so they will touch the long "EARTH" strip on the bottom of the cardboard flap. Use a marker to label what each aluminum foil strip will be connected to (earth, space, up, down, left, right).

6. Print out photos of what you want each flap to represent and glue them onto the top of each flap.

7. Connect the alligator clips from the Makey Makey to each corresponding flap.

8. Use SCRATCH MIT to program each flap to correspond with a different sound or recording.

9. Make sure to create a "STOP" flap so that you can stop and start each sound.

Make sure to set up and test your Sleep Sound Soother.

You can use this same code and change the sounds, voice recordings, and music to create something that is personalized for your needs.