Scratch

With Scratch, you can program your own interactive stories, games, and animations — and share your creations with others in the online community. Scratch helps young people learn to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively — essential skills for life in the 21st century. Scratch is a project of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab. It is provided free of charge.

Materials:

• 1 graphite pencil (6B)
• Paper

Equipment:

• 1 MaKey Makey classic kit per group of two students.
• 1 computer per group of two students.
  • Computer must be preloaded with: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/editor/?tutorial=getStarted
    • Please note that this is not logged in. If students wish to save their work they will need to create an account. It’s free!
    • Scratch gives you the power to download the software, or use it in browser. Downloading allows you to save programs right to your desktop, where using it in browser saves to the cloud! Both are great, and often the inbrowser version is more accessible.
  • Google Chrome is recommended
  • You may need to install Flash or Javascript

MaKey Makey: An Invention Kit for Everyone is an electronic invention tool and toy that allows users to connect everyday objects to computer programs. Using a circuit board, alligator clips, and a USB cable, the toy uses closed loop electrical signals to send the computer either a keyboard stroke or mouse click signal. This function allows the MaKey Makey to work with any computer program or webpage that accepts keyboard or mouse click inputs. Essentially, a MaKey Makey can replace your keyboard and mouse!