Sensory Tree: Festive tinkering with Soundplant & Makey Makey

A week of numerous conversations supporting plans to make computing and maker more inclusive ended with an email from a colleague that triggered this tinkering challenge.

Warm Christmas wishes and the question about which device was controlling the lights on our family's tree. Was it Raspberry Pi?

Actually, it was Codebug; an extension that came through this week's MakerEd workshops.

But that got me thinking that to make a more sensory tree experience we should add some sound. Something fairly low tech and fun though; something with as close to absolutely no programming as possible.

Makey Makey festive mash up

Something to control sound and add to the light and festive aromas but, more importantly, trigger routes to progression afterwards. And with that, thoughts reverted to Makey Makey - probably with some anticipation and plans for the latest invention kit delivery.

Conductive tree connectors

What emerged was a chance to link up a keyboard sound triggering tool, Soundplant, and quickly develop an incredibly engaging and intuitive process.

Probably too many chocs eaten on a Saturday morning, but they were for conductive testing purposes. And Santa really ought to be sounding more Brian Blessed : )