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In my attachment, my group had to organise and prepare a workshop.
The Science Centre is an institution located in Jurong East, whose main goal is to encourage and promote scientific education to the general public, as well as make it more accessible. It contains a huge amount of scientific exhibits that are made to pique interest in technology in the people who view these exhibits. It also conducts many school programs, to complement the school's existing science curriculum.
We were tasked to create a workshop for 90 groups of ~3-4 people, in which they would have 2 hours to create a musical instrument with only a Makey Makey board, a laptop with Scratch 2.0, and the provided materials.
We started by first familiarizing ourselves with the Makey Makey and Scratch, by experimenting and watching tutorial videos. By the end of the first day, we were able to create the blocks of code and wire the Makey Makey board to create a basic interactive “instrument” complete with sound. We also learnt about how the Makey Makey system could connect through conductors of any strength - even play-doh and pencil lead, while non-conductors like cardboard could still insulate the instrument to normal touch.
We were also required to come up with prototypes that would introduce the attendees of the workshop to the possibilities and capabilities of the Makey Makey board, and to give them ideas for their own instruments. After some brainstorming, we eventually came up with and built a piano, guitar, violin, trumpet, cymbals, and a random sound generator. The random sound generator was made with the intent of showing that the Makey Makey board was capable of more than just interactive instruments and to encourage them to get creative.
The attendees of the workshop would require materials to construct their instruments - both conductive and non-conductive. For this, we had to pack 90 boxes of tools, materials, and Makey Makey boards, and we did not have enough materials at the Science Centre for ~360 people. To resolve this, we went out shopping for materials. This also allowed us to diversify what kinds of materials the attendees would have access to, as it would not be limited simply by what we had available.
As we worked on the project, we were met with multiple challenges.
The most significant of these challenges was that for the Makey Makey to work, the user had to hold an earth wire, which was something we did not want as we wanted the instrument to be easily playable without extra steps that might ruin the immersion. We ended up coming up with solutions that varied based on the instrument. For example, the bow of the violin was connected to the earth, while the strings were made of copper tape such that the violin would make a sound when the bow was held and pressed against the violin strings. The trumpet also has the interesting solution of the earth wire attached near the mouthpiece such that as you brought it to your mouth to play the earth wire would come into contact with your chin, allowing the trumpet to be played by pressing the finger buttons.
We also had issues with diversifying the materials we would put into the boxes to provide the attendees with. We ended up researching on and comparing the creations of people who had worked with Makey Makey before and took inspiration to come up with more unique materials while avoiding overusing the more common materials. We came up with more interesting materials as a result, such as conductive slime (which we made ourselves).
I personally had issues with connecting the wires, but eventually I realised that the copper wires had a layer of insulation that had to be scraped off manually with a pen knife.
The prototypes we created to inspire the workshop attendees and display the capabilities of Makey Makey were the piano, guitar, violin, trumpet, cymbals, and a random sound generator. While the first 5 had very similar codes, the random sound generator required the use of a list and many more sound effects comparatively - hence, I will only elaborate on the Guitar and the Random Sound Generator.
Guitar
The guitar we made has 4 “strings” (so, more like a ukulele) and each string was linked to an input on the Makey Makey board. When the strings are pressed, the corresponding input is registered on the connected laptop. The code for the guitar ensures that the laptop will play a note based on the inputs it receives, which is in turn based on the string pressed - hence the instrument can be played. It is worth noting that due to the limitations of the Makey Makey board, an instrument cannot work without its specific code and sound effects.
Random sound Generator
This “instrument” was the one I worked on, as I volunteered to create and code it. It simply consists of a Makey Makey board in a cardboard cuboid, with a single button connected to a single input on the Makey Makey board, as well as the earth wire. As the button is pressed, one of 25 sound effects would be played. As the sound effects provided varied in length, I opted to delete the longer sound effects manually. How the generator function is that the script would choose a random number from 1 to 25 when the button was pressed, and a sound effect in a list corresponding to said number would play.
By the end of the attachment, we had also packed 90 boxes of materials and tools. As each group of attendees would have only a single box to create their instrument with, we had to cater the materials such that all the boxes had the materials required for a number of unique possible instruments. Each box contains tools like scissors or cheap pen knives, structural materials such as cardboard and straws, flexible conductors such as copper wires, pipe cleaners or conductive tape, and sometimes a special conductor such as slime or play-doh.
From all of this, we picked up valuable skills on how to plan for big events, and learnt to look through the perspectives of our target audience and act accordingly to deliver them the best possible experience we can. We also learnt how to brainstorm, prototype and execute a plan to create something as a team.
From this experience, I learnt how to use Makey Makey and to work better with Scratch - I learnt how to use lists and functions in Scratch to achieve a clearer and more concise code.
I also gained insight into the life of those employed at the Science Centre - seeing them work and how they go about their daily work has been an interesting experience, and will be a basis of what I might expect from work life.
I have learnt many things from exploring the Science Centre, from our 17 January sightseeing program to attending lectures - I learnt about the tesla coil and its set-up, about a butterfly’s preferences and diet, about solar prominence and many other things. From my work, I have also learnt about the surprising conductivity of certain materials, like pipe cleaners.
I also got to see the show “We are Stars” in the omni-theatre, which reinforces some of what I know about physics, new things about our universe and the stars, and got me to think about the origins of elements other than hydrogen and helium.
If there was one key takeaway from my attachment, it is that we should be open to new experiences and knowledge. I was initially disappointed that we would only be doing Scratch and that we would spend many days packing, but by opening myself up to new experiences despite my initial reservations, I have learnt many things about what work goes into planning a workshop, work life and various other things I would not have otherwise discovered.
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