Makey Makey Basic Solar System Facts

Here is my project. It's a relatively simple and easy to make one. The hardest part was figuring out how to be able to select from 10 different choices using 5 buttons.

This is basically a stand of sorts with the solar system on it containing some basic facts about the solar system we live in. This could be used for really young kids like in elementary school learning about the solar system or used as a quick and simple science project on astrology.

• Paper cutouts of planets + sun + start, stop, reset, next and choose buttons
• Conductive materials to be the actual buttons that are preferably metal to create a circuit(dark pencil, paperclips, pins etc.)
• Chromebook or laptop for the coding
• Scratch program
• Scissors
• An exacto knife
• Decorations for stars(ex: shiny stuff, beads, paper shapes etc.)
• Dark blue or black construction paper for the background Marker that will stand out against the paper(ex: silver marker)
• Cardboard

* You don't have to match the keys that I used exactly for example for the choose button I connected it to the space key and the start button is connected to the down arrow

1. Create a Scratch account to save all your work at https://scratch.mit.edu.
2. Click "CREATE" in the upper left hand corner to create a new project.
3. Click the yellow "EVENTS" button on the left hand side.
4. Choose the "WHEN SPACE KEY PRESSED" block and drag it into the empty workspace to the right and choose which key you would like to connect to the START button: the down arrow, up arrow, left arrow, right arrow or space key.
5. Go to the dark orange "VARIABLES" button and make a list, name it and add all the planets, the sun and Pluto onto the list.
6. Choose another "WHEN SPACE KEY PRESSED" block and choose which key you would like to connect to the NEXT button: the down arrow, up arrow, left arrow, right arrow or space key
7. Create a variable and name it choose planet. Increase the variable by one each time the button is clicked and if choose button reached 1 more than how many objects you're giving information on, set the variable back to one
8. Create the STOP and RESET buttons in a similar way to the START and NEXT buttons with the "WHEN SPACE KEY PRESSED" block
   • STOP button: stop everything, delete everything on the list on hid the sprites
   • RESET button: set the variable back to 1 and stop whatever information the code is giving
9. Create the CHOOSE button next with an if the variable is = to "item # of sun in 'the list'" for all objects on the list and record whatever facts you choose about the sun
10. Repeat for all of the other objects

1. Get a large piece of cardboard that can be folded in half - like to sides of a box
2. Cut out the Sun, the 8 planets and Pluto
3. Glue construction paper on the bigger half of the piece of cardboard or at least one of them
4. Draw in the orbits with pencil and then trace over them with silver marker or any color that will stand out against dark blue/black
5. Glue in the planets
6. On the other half, glue construction paper over it with either the same color or a different color (preferably still dark blue or black because space is usually shown like that) and cut 5 slits with an exacto knife on the side by the edge and put in conductive pins or paperclips in a way that the pins/paperclips won't move
7. Cut out the buttons and label which ones are going to be START, STOP, RESET, NEXT and CHOOSE
8. Cut out bigger pictures of the planets + sun + Pluto and label them with their names and how many times to click the NEXT button to get information on that planet
9. Put in instructions on how to work it if there is space, if not edit the code so that the start button will say the instructions
10. Decorate and make the project look pretty with whatever tools you have

1. Insert the USB mini end of the cable into the USB mini slot of the Makey Makey.
2. Insert the USB end of the cable into your laptop or Chromebook.
3. Go to the Scratch program and see inside
4. Attach alligator clips from the up arrow, down arrow, left arrow, right arrow and space key to the buttons as your code says to
5. Test all the buttons if they activate correctly and then check if all of planets/sun/Pluto works
6. Adjust when needed