21st Century Skills InnovatIon LIbrary MakerS as Innovators Makey Makey Cherry Lake PubLishing ann arbor MiChigan by Sandy Ng
MakerS as innovaTors Chapter 1 Say Hello to Makey Makey I magine there’s a new game you can’t wait to play on your computer You’re excited to sit down and start playing You load the game and get your fingers in position on the keyboard However you quickly notice that the keyboard isn’t working You can connect a Makey Makey to your computer and use it to control your keyboard 4
Makey Makey To fix it you try unplugging it and plugging it back in It still doesn’t work How will you play your game now Wouldn’t it be great if you could just use the stuff in the room around you to build a new controller Believe it or not this is totally possible You just need help from a device called a Makey Makey Makey Makey was created by Jay Silver and Eric Rosenbaum when they were students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Jay and Eric believe that everyone in the world is creative and imaginative enough to become an inventor They thought the only thing most people needed was an easy way to bring their ideas to life To help these people become inventors Jay and Eric created a simple kit called a Makey Makey At first it was expensive to make the Makey Makey kits Jay and Eric were only able to make a few of them They needed money to make more kits so others could buy them and start inventing In 2012 they used a Web site called Kickstarter to collect donations Eventually they gathered enough money and made many more kits You can now buy either an original Makey Makey or a keychain-sized Makey Makey GO to tinker with 5
