Celebrating our #Bananaversary ! Check out 10 years of amazing projects!
Happy Bananaversary to Makey Makey!
We're stoked to announce a new milestone for Makey Makey! This month, we are celebrating 10 years of invention! From the start, we have placed a high value on learning through play and discovery, delivering tools that inspire joy and creative exploration, and supporting a community that shares great ideas!
In this week's spotlight, we are celebrating ten years of amazing projects! Grab a slice of banana cake and come along to enjoy Makey Makey projects by the years!
2012
In 2012, when Makey Makey debuted, Eric Rosenbaum led multiple workshops and compiled this amazing sampler of Music Examples.
This epic Bananamohpone was created by Jay Silver's brother, Beau. It is one of the first banana pianos in existence and it is EPIC!
2013
In 2013, Eric continued to collect Makey Makey Musical Examples and the projects in this compilation are very beautiful and divergent.
This Jviews video is one of our favorite BEETS of all time. Click on over to Youtube to watch this musical masterpiece.
Just a year after inception, even though most projects were musical, the amazing folks over at The Tech made this epic game called Collabothon for their Makerspace cookbook. (Follow the Instructable Guide here if you want to make something similar!) All credit goes to Lindsay Balfour (aka MaKey Lindsay) and Kenny Guglielmino (aka Maker Kenny.)
Museums and makerspaces were starting to really dig Makey Makey in 2013 and wanted to find interesting ways for patrons to interact with the world around them. Check out Pete Prodoehl's Apple xylophone made for the Milwaukee Makerspace.
In 2013, JoyLabz also held a contest and this group made the most aMAZEing maze project called the Makey Journey.
Ya ha salido el tema ("JOINED TOGETHER") y me he acordado de una actividad-juego con @makeymakey que encajaría perfecto! #gmtkjamhttps://t.co/aEK9fLCN8N pic.twitter.com/VyHZkaXY1A
— David 🎮💃🐐 (@drnlab) June 11, 2021
2014
Some makers took Makey Makey to the max like this Makey Monome project by Jenna deBoisblanc. Check out Jenna's Instructable to learn more about this project.
Jay Silver helped out at Not Back to School Camp and campers made some very intriguing electronic nature art!
2015
In 2015, Vat 19 started carrying Makey Makey, and as they often do, they made an EPIC viral video showing some of the most fun things one can do with Makey Makey!
Slow Magic made a song entirely out of candy.
This installation made in Paris Conservatory by three students from the sound engineering course is stunning! The devices used are: a makey-makey, a computer with Pure Data and Ableton Live, plus eight fruits. Check out Le Frutophone by Noe.
Teachers were starting to use Makey Makey in schools and classrooms. This epic Hallway symphony was created by a Digital Music teacher at CJHS. We loved seeing how teachers were using Makey Makey to transform school experiences.
In 2015, librarians Colleen Graves and Diana Rendina challenged students to create interactive projects with Makey Makey. It ended with the JoyLabz team chatting with Colleen's students. Read more here.
In 2015, another surprising use for Makey Makey started becoming more prevalent! Parents and students were using Makey Makey to create assistive technology. Checkout how Tom Heck led students to create devices for fellow students.
2016
Know when is art is the most fun? When it's interactive! In 2016, Brooklyntonia created this super popular Instructables guide for making interactive art. In her guide, you can learn how to make artworks that sing, talk, or play sound effects when they're touched.
Did you know that the Constructing Modern Knowledge Conference uses Makey Makey in their yearly summer institute? In 2016, there were some amazing pinball machines powered by Makey Makey and Scratch!
2016 saw the construction of multiple #pinball machines! People added @makeymakey and @scratch to some, while others used @arduino to keep score or light up the board and features. #STEAM #makered https://t.co/K8nEGEEY6J pic.twitter.com/qbmt4NF8wq
— Josh Burker (@joshburker) April 12, 2022
ln 2016, Makey Makey was finding its way into more classrooms. Colleen Graves shared with her students how to make interactive poetry with Makey Makey and pencil drawings. This became one of the education communities favorite activities!
2017
In 2017 EduTuber, Maddie Moate shared this amazing (and educational) pumpkin piano video!
In 2017, Colleen and Aaron Graves released an entire book on Makey Makey projects. In this book, you can make spin art, cookie jar alarms, pinball machines, and more!
This cookie jar alarm video is pretty hilarious.
This highlight reel shows a lot of great project ideas from the book.
2018
In 2018, Eric Turrill created 15 amazing STEM in the gym stations with Makey Makey! We loved the ideas so much that we interviewed Eric and wrote a "STEM in the Gym challenge" for you to use with your own students.
Check out these 16 great activities designed by Eric and his students!
A few educators on our Facebook group, took tinkering to a whole new level in 2018 by making their own giant Makey Makeys. Our team thought this was a great idea for teaching students about microcontrollers. Hence, we asked our Director of Creative Content to create a free guide for making your own functional gigantic Makey Makey.
2019
In 2019, compsci teacher Fraser McKay made a ton of epic projects and we were totally blown away by this Roll up Maze project. Make sure to check out his guide for making a roll-up Makey Makey maze.
We were so blown away, we mashed this idea up with sensory paths and this sensory maze was born! We'd seen schools putting these into hallways to help fidgety students with concentration. So we thought- let's make a gamified version with Makey Makey. Colleen debuted this mat with an entire school during their annual STEAM Day.
For this project, you need to design and create a sensory path for two players. 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.
Remember the song entirely made of candy? Well, Slow Magic changed his eating habits and shared this amazing VEGAN BEAT video with his fans.
Teachers were also finding new ways to build physical controllers with Makey Makey. Matthew Moore AKA Always Computing made this amazing Cardboard Makey Makey Slider. Make your own by following his Instructables!
2019 had a lot of amazing projects! We were wowed by The Raindrops Orchestra, an interactive performance created by Johnny Tal. Learn more about the Raindrop Orchestra by Johnny Tal in this post about his work!
We had some amazing ambassadors in 2019. The Scratching Surfer shared these 15 cool Makey Makey project ideas from our ambassadors and all these guides are on the Instructables website.
2020
2020 was a weird time. We all appreciated creatives that tried out fun ideas and made us laugh.
Jordi Crespo made an entire grand piano out of cardboard!
This deluxe Keyboard project has 61 keys and 5 octaves! Each key has its sound independent of the other keys, you can play several at once. This project uses 2 Makey Makey remapped with the numbers 0 to 9 and letters A to Z.
In 2020, Música Encriptada ot only plays the Rocky Theme on watermelons, but he makes a music box out of paper, and plays one of our favorite songs with some Pikachu stuffies. Make sure to watch the last bit to see the full song with many, many experimental musical Makey Makey instruments from Música Encriptada.
Lots of DJs started using Makey Makey in their reels- we loved this one by DJ Myma! Check out more of her work on her Soundcloud!
We also became fast friends with Lonershy after he turned his face into a midi controller!
He has shared and created many amazing Makey Makey projects that really do show that the world is your construction kit!
We took some time in 2020 to focus on assistive technology and were simply wowed by this Braille calculator made by Tracy Zhang!
2021
Remember that time Makey Makey was mentioned in the Rolling Stone? We have Tyzo Bloom to thank for this rendition of a Red Hot Chili Peppers's song on red hot chili peppers.
@tyzobloom The world I love...🌶🧡 #redhotchilipeppers #cantstop #chilipeppers #californication ♬ original sound - Tyzo Bloom
In 2021, Musician and artist Jess Godwin made an entire series of Color Pop videos using Makey Makey and music.
Check out her work on Instagram as she is working on a full series using Makey Makey to create beautiful and colorful videos. (If you like the videos, consider supporting Jess on Patreon!) She reprogrammed the inputs on Makey Makey to be key commands for her midi controller, plus she's sampled her own voice for each input. Since debuting these projects, she's even made an entire wearable controller!
2022
2022 has only just begun, but we were already blown away by Josh Burker's lasercut cardboard trumpet! This DIY instrument is a thing of maker beauty! Check out his blog to learn how he built this amazing Makey Makey project! We just love the springs used for trumpet keys!
What Makey Makey projects does the future hold? The possibilities are unlimited!
