Carnival Sized Games for STEAM Day

November 12, 2019

Last month, our Curriculum and Content director Colleen Graves volunteered at a local elementary school to create and run oversized Makey Makey games for the majority of the school!

While she is working on a larger guide to explain how to run your own STEAM day event with Makey Makey, we wanted to go ahead and share the games and one very detailed how-to! We'll let Colleen take it from here!

Cardboard Calculator designed by Colleen Graves

Last year my ten year old talked about making a Hopscotch game with Makey Makey during our STEM in the gym challenge and this led me to creating this oversized Cardboard Hopscotch Calculator! Creating the calculator in Scratch was really fun and really math driven, it will make a great curriculum focused guide! The giant calculator you operate with your feet was difficult to design, but I have some great ideas for iterations that might make it more replicable for others. I'm working on one of those this month and the guide will include a full tutorial on creating your own calculator in Scratch! To play this game, I had an EARTH strip for students to stand on and another student would hold their hand and then press out an equation. The adult running the game would give the older kids a number and ask them to create an equation that would give that number. For the younger students (2nd), we gave them easier numbers or gave them equation. Many of the second graders had never actually used a calculator! So this was a neat introduction in how to use one! My challenge was to make one playable by your feet, but also could easily be packed up and transported or stored.

Cardboard @makeymakey hopscotch calculator in action! Coded in @scratch ! #makered pic.twitter.com/qQwQ2VMhXW
— Colleen Graves (@gravescolleen) October 11, 2019

When polled at the end of the day, many of the kids said this math game was one of their favorites! Here's the game all stacked neatly and ready to move to the next location.

Basketball Bounce Pass designed by Aaron Graves

More bounce pass practice in the Gattis gym! Awesome fun using #makeymakey and new Scratch @scratch @gravescolleen pic.twitter.com/oGR1uYlX0N
— Aaron Graves (@gravesdotaaron) January 26, 2019

Aaron designed this game last year to help his students with improving their basketball chest pass. Students pass the ball and try to hit the target as much as possible before the timer goes out. This helps them actually focus on passing the ball and not trying to bounce it as high as possible. The switches used are made the same way the Ultimate Stomping Pad is made, but Aaron used one Cat5 wire to keep them all connected! I will make sure to include tips for creating your own in the STEAM day event guide! Here is the link to Aaron's Bounce Pass Scratch Project.

Scooter Race with Hula Hoop Timers designed by Eric Turrill

Last year Aaron made these hula hoop switches based on Eric's idea from this epic STEM in the Gym video. I thought this would also make a great activity for our STEAM day event and I loved the way Aaron re-designed the hula hoop switch! Here is Aaron's Scratch project that goes with this game.

I had fun yesterday with @gravesdotaaron #steminthegym activities at Gattis Elementary! He made a race with a Start and stop a timer in @scratch powered with a @makeymakey hula hoop switch! pic.twitter.com/iNZEEOYjWv
— Colleen Graves (@gravescolleen) January 25, 2019

Kids grab the hula hoop switch to start and stop the timer in Scratch! If you want to challenge your own students to make some physical education games, check out this challenge guide I wrote this summer.

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The scooter race was another STREAM day favorite! Thanks for the hula hoop switches @gravesdotaaron ! This game idea is from Eric Turrill’s #STEMInthegym activities!

A post shared by Colleen Graves (@makercolleengraves) on Oct 11, 2019 at 12:35pm PDT

Collaborative Sensory Maze designed by Colleen Graves

The final game for STEAM day was this oversized Collaborative Makey Makey Sensory Maze. Last year, one of our Makey Makey ambassadors, Fraser Mckay, created a guide for making a roll-up Makey Makey maze. It really inspired me because of the portability and sustainable aspect of it, and I thought it would be great to mash up with sensory paths I've seen schools putting in hallways to help fidgety students with concentration.

Each player walks a conductive pathway and both players need to maintain the connection by holding hands. The have to work together to figure out the sensory movements (smell the flowers, skip the insulators, etc) needed to get through this "maze" without breaking their connection.

Collaborative @makeymakey sensory maze in action! @scratch #makered #STEM #STEAM #STREAM @DeepWood_RRISD pic.twitter.com/slJBlxo9Qs
— Colleen Graves (@gravescolleen) October 11, 2019

The full guide to make your own is available on our Instructables Community Hub!

Everything all packed up and Portable!

The goal for these games was to make them fun, portable, and able to withstand over 300 elementary students playing them! I can't wait to get the full guide shared with you for your own STEAM day event!

What a day! All four #STREAM day games packed up and ready for the weekend! @makeymakey https://t.co/6hq7jWMN2i pic.twitter.com/UW556N7O1x
— Colleen Graves (@gravescolleen) October 11, 2019