2 Player Frustration Game with Makey Makey and Scratch Programming

Step 1: 2 Player Frustration Game With Makey Makey/ Scratch Programming

A fun frustration game you can play against your friends! Both players try to get their Popsicle sticks through the wire hanger course without touching the wire! If you touch the wire your animal will make a sound and you will get a point! Whoever reaches the end with the least points in 60 seconds wins!

Step 2: Materials

-2 wire clothes hangers
-flat piece of cardboard
-makey makey kit
-duct tape
-popsicle sticks
-aluminum foil
-computer with Scratch programming (free online and offline versions)
-Metal wire (a small spool of jewelry making wire is what I used)

Step 3: Make the wire courses

Bend your wire hanger into whatever crazy shapes you want as the course. I tried to make both of mine as similar as possible for game fairness. Also, bend the ends so that you have a flat part to stand it up/connect to the makey makey.

Once you have your shape down, wrap the wire with foil for extra conductivity. I tried my hangers without the foil and they were not very consistent. If yours work well without the foil then go for it!

Step 4: Popsicle stick loop wands

Next, make your popsicle stick loop wands that will pass through the wire course.

First, I wrapped my popsicle stick with the metal jewelry making wire. I ended it with a big loop for the wire hanger course to go through and a little loop at the other end for the Makey Makey jumper cable. Keep in mind the size of your big loop, the bigger the loop the easier the game will be.

Next, I covered the bigger loop and end of the popsicle stick with foil. The Popsicle end by the loop needs to have foil or else someone will just have the wire hanger course touching that end the whole time and never get any penalties.

After everything that will be touching the wire hanger course is covered in foil, you can cover the whole thing with duct tape for a clean look and to protect the wire and foil.

Step 5: Make The Game board

Attach one side of each wire hanger course to the cardboard piece with duct tape. Leave the tip of the end exposed to connect to the Makey Makey. Leave the other end of the wire courses free so that you can get the Popsicle sticks on and off for repairs. I also put more duct tape on each end of the wire courses as starting and ending points so that the Popsicle stick can rest there without making the game go crazy.

After securing one end on each of the wire courses to the cardboard with duct tape in a way that will allow the wire courses to stand up, I went ahead and covered each side of the board with duct tape for a clean look.

I added a fancy start button with two foil strips spiraling. One connects to the ground on the Makey Makey and the other to a button on the Makey Makey that will start the timer on the Scratch program and reset the scores. To start you simply touch both strips of foil in the spiral to complete the circuit.

To finish the board I wrote the game title and added my Scratch characters.

Step 6: Game Programming