Update: Week before Music Ed Hackathon

Music Ed Hackathon - June 28-29, 2013 - NYC

• Sign up via Hacker League
• Depart Friday morning, arrive back Sunday afternoon/early evening
• What materials do we need to take/have on hand/purchase for the event?
• Other questions?

MaKey MaKey Chord Board 

Today, Matt and I figured out how to debounce keyboard inputs in Scratch 2.0 in an efficient manner. Check out the generic debounce code here: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/11051284/.

Version 1 of the Chord Board seems to be finished. :)

What next?

• Develop Music MaKey Construction Kit-in-a-box.
• Materials? Tacks, paper clips, conductive thread, foil, rubber bands, conductive ink, tape, etc.
• Develop 3 additional MaKey music projects
• Simple drumset (with original samples) - and a sample shift button for close, mid and far mic'ing exploration
• Simple keyboard (8 diatonic notes over 1 octave, with [2] +/- 12 buttons)
• Chromatic MaKey Circle layout - inner -1 offset circle; outer +1 offset circle, plus octave up/down buttons.
• Re/Code & Re/Build everything based on default MaKey MaKey layouts (11 key inputs MAX - w,a,s,d,f,g, up, down, left, right, space).
• Develop versions of project code WITH and WITHOUT a responsive GUI. The GUIs make things complicated when initially remixing, though, it would be nice to provide a version with and without for those who want to explore that. The code itself becomes more complicated, but the benefit is in making the concepts experienced visible in addition to audible.
• Map projects & builds onto Next Generation Science Standards and relevant Common Core standards... in addition to current Music National Standards (in general).
• Create open sample sets for Scratch
• 
  

Emerging Ideas

Questions:

• What might "design thinking" and "engineering design" look like in music classrooms K-12?
• How can design experiences with MaKey MaKey in music and audio contexts reinforce and connect to the Next Generation Science Standards" and the "Common Core?"
• How can the authenticity of musical experiences be maintained when making connections to non-music/arts standards?
• 
  

Music MaKey MaKey Ideas

From Eric Rosenbaum:

* I built a working proof-of-concept prototype on a breadboard. it uses a teensy++, which has MIDI HID functionality and is arduino compatible. I was able to port the makey makey code to it, and use it to send MIDI instead of keystrokes. pretty sweet. I'm pretty sure it can easily switch between MIDI and keyboard/mouse- good idea!  

* I started sketching what I would want the front of the board to look like- just a piano layout, with pairs of holes for alligator clips like makey makey. (I also started adding a drum set, but not sure about that yet). I've attached a png of it. actually I'm also attaching an ai file in case you want to play around with it. 

* my idea for the next step is to use the vinyl cutter to make a copper foil circuit of the whole thing- I'll add pads for resistors, and a sort of socket for the teensy. Then I think I can make a laser cut base to adhere it to, out of wood maybe, including the various holes for the teensy and clips. one challenge will be that the through-holes will be un-plated so it might not make a good connection to the alligator clip. so I think I'll try leaving flaps inside each that can fold down into the hole. 

* of course there's a lot more to consider for the design... what about analog inputs? like you mentioned there could be built in knobs and sliders- but what if you could make your own analog sensors as well? the problem is calibrating them, so the system knows the range you're using. but maybe we could invent a system for this (not an easy design problem I think). It would probably be a capacitance sensing thing but I'm not sure.

AI file for Piano Keyboard
Teensy++ Projects & Sample Code (including MIDI)