Day 29

Yesterday, I shared one of my favorite guides for making a momentary switch. Today, I'm gonna share a super simple paper circuit board. Plus, I've made this into a miniature version of a holiday door display. Lastly, I challenged myself to make this without conductive tape! All you need is a Makey Makey and everyday stuff.

This project is made with entirely:

My backdrop is from some candy we bought for our kids' teachers, the snowman I cut out of regular construction paper, and Santa is upcycled from used wrapping paper!

Create Foil Tape

Since foil is conductive and you probably have some in your kitchen, it makes a great way to create interactive touch points on everyday items. Plus, you can cut it in any shape you want! Cut your foil to be your circuit traces and use a gluestick to adhere it to your back ground. It's best to have one length of foil instead of piecing the foil together. While a gluestick is conductive when wet, it will most likely loose its conductivity when it dries. Therefore if you have to piece your foil together, make sure the two sides of foil touch without the glue acting as an insulator.

Create Circuit Traces

For Makey Makey to work, you need one foil trace for your key press, and one foil trace for your ground (AKA EARTH).

For my mini display, I used one foil track for EARTH and hooked my grey alligator clip to it.

For the first key press, I've made a small foil trace and hooked the red alligator clip to it.

You can either touch both traces to activate the switch, or use a conductive item to bridge this circuit.

Making a Switch

I used two different types of switches here. You can decide which version you'd like better!

Key Press and Earth

You can make your foil trace the key press and attach it to your "ornament." Above, I've made Santa's tummy the key press, and wrapped the foil all the way to the top of this cut out. The foil belly wraps to Santa's hat and the red alligator clip is attached directly to this foil. The other end of the alligator clip is hooked to "space."

Bridging Conductive Traces

The other way to do this is to create a positive foil trace and a negative foil trace. (I used the same EARTH foil trace for my whole project.) Instead of the belly foil being attached to the key press, I've made a second foil trace. The alligator clip is hooked to the right arrow. So instead of the key press, the foil on the snowman's belly, is just a conductive pad that bridges the circuit when it presses and touches both foil traces. (Much like the way YOU bridge the circuit when you play a banana piano.)

Sometimes, it's frustrating to have alligator clips all over your display. So you might try making your own paper circuit board like the switch example on the right. This type of switch is exactly how calculators and kid's toy buttons work! Bust open an old calculator and you are likely to find two conductive traces that are only bridged when a conductive pad is pushed to close the circuit.

Since this is a miniature version of a door display, I'm able to connect my alligator clips directly to my foil traces. On a large scale, I'd use a long piece of wire to connect to my Makey Makey. (For this, you can use hook up wire or strip an old telephone/ethernet cable.)

In case you need it, here's how to strip an old ethernet cable!

Hacking Ethernet Cables

It's super simple to hack an old ethernet cable and have multiple wires for Makey Makey-ing! Just cut off the outer casing a few inches and strip the wires you want to use. Bonus: This is like making your own ribbon cable!

Code It

The last step is to code your song in Scratch! I uploaded mp3 files and decided it would be fun to have my song ONLY play when the switch is activated. So if you stop pressing the switch, the sound stops.

If you make this, remember to share your work! Make with others this holiday season and enjoy your #25daysofmaking!

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