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MaKey MaKey Banana Pong [code]

Banana Logo

I’m posting this because someone asked for it, and I aim to please… Here’s the Banana Pong code. I used code someone else wrote to bootstrap this thing, but there was no comment about who wrote it, and I didn’t make record of where I grabbed it, so… no attribution. Sorry! If it’s your code, let me know.

Have fun playing Banana Pong with your MaKey MaKey!

Note: The first ZIP file is the Processing source code. The second is a Mac OS X application. Since Processing has changed how it exports applications I can’t easily create versions for Windows and Linux like I did for the Apple Piano code. So if you want a Windows or Linux standalone version, you’ll need to grab the code and do it yourself. It should serve as a good starting point.

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MaKey MaKey Apple Piano [code]

Makey Makey Apple Piano

I’m one of those people who say “I’ll publish that code later!” and then I get busy with other projects and never publish the code, so here’s me publishing the code.

So back in January I built the MaKey MaKey Apple Piano for one of Art Milwaukee‘s events that the Milwaukee Makerspace was involved in. And yeah, here’s the code!

MakeyPlayer

I’ve provided the Processing sketch and related data files, as well as full applications (for multiple platforms) for those who don’t want to mess around with compiling sketches, and just want to download and run an application for their MaKey MaKey.

Could it use improvements? Of course it could! Feel free to make it better, and if you do, please share your changes with others.

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MaKey MaKey Banana Pong

My last MaKey MaKey project was the Apple Piano, which I created for Milwaukee Makerspace‘s participation in a previous Art Jamboree event that Art Milwaukee put on…

The Apple Piano was about sound, as that’s been something I’ve been toying with in Processing for some time. With another Art Jamboree on the horizon, I set my sights on a classic video game… and bananas.

As usual, when I need a nice piece of clip art I head to OpenClipArt.org. This time I found a sweet looking bunch of bananas. I only needed one banana so a quick edit in Inkscape got me what I needed.

Wait, but why did I need these banana images again? Because a game of pong is pretty boring… unless it’s Milwaukee Makerspace Banana Pong! Controlled by real bananas.

I found a nice one-player Pong sketch written in Processing, but it was your typical vertical paddle movement, and I needed a horizontal paddle movement. I ended up rewriting the game a bit to turn it all 90 degrees so the left/right of the banana controller would make more sense.

(Disclaimer: If you know anything about me, you know that I believe in crediting people for their work. We’ve got a problem this time. I went through so many Pong sketches that somehow I lost track of the one I started with. I’ve searched for more than an hour and could not find my starting codebase! If I do find it, I’ll update this post to point to it. On with the story!)

Banana Logo

Once I got the game working, I needed to add some fitting graphics, so what better than a take on the Milwaukee Makerspace logo with… bananas. (We’ve got a history of weird/wacky logos.)

One thing I learned was that bananas are not very tough! If you let people pound on your bananas for a while they get really mushy. I should have brought a lot more spares so I could swap them out more often.

Here’s a few photos from the event:

Banana Pong Player

Pong Player

Pong Player

Pong Player

Pong Player

Pong Player

Update: The code is available.

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MaKey MaKey Apple Piano

A few months ago a bunch of us from Milwaukee Makerspace took part in Bay View Gallery Night, and jason set up the “Fruit Synthesizer” which was a Makey Makey with a variety of fruit, and some software combo of Max MSP and GarageBand. People really enjoyed it, and with the most recent Art Jamboree happening with jason out of town, I figured I would pick up the slack.

Makey Makey Apple Piano

With a simple base made with two pieces of wood, some dollar store forks, a few nuts, bolts, and bits of wire, we had the Makey Makey Apple Piano.

One of the issues with jason’s Fruit Synthesizer was that you had to touch the fruit. He did provide hand sanitizer, but with it being flu season, having dozens of people touch a piece of fruit seemed like a bad idea, and forks just seemed like the right thing to keep hands clean, and work like xylophone mallets.

Makey Makey Apple Piano

For a project like this it’s nice to have the controller board visible, so people can see it and you can easily explain how it works. The Makey Makey was sitting right behind the forky board thing.

Makey Makey Apple Piano

The bolts that hold the forks in place also doubled as terminal connectors that I could attach the alligator clips to.

Makey Makey Apple Piano

I added bolts at each end of the base for the ground connections. (And used red wires to match the Makey Makey, and the apples.)

Makey Makey Apple Piano

The wires running to the forks serve two purposes: they ground the forks to complete the connection that the Makey Makey needs, and they also tether the forks to the base to keep it all together. (Drilling holes through the forks was a lot of fun. I had to assure my wife I did not drill holes in our everyday dining forks.)

Makey Makey Apple Piano

But wait! You can’t just have a bunch of forks and apples and wires and expect something to happen… you also need a computer and some sort of software to do anything useful…

MakeyPlayer

I wrote a Processing application to play sounds and light up the specific apple you were hitting. (I got a good start on the code from this sketch.) I had a lot of fun(!?) with the Minim library. My original plan was to export the Processing application as a Windows executable and use an old netbook to run it. That sort of worked, but I don’t know if the Windows XP machine was up to the task, because when I set it up at the event (after extensive testing in the lab) the audio freaked out, so I ended up switching to my MacBook. An Apple Computer controlled by Apples… fitting, right?

(Processing isn’t the greatest thing for this sort of task, and MIDI really is the right way to go, but we’re already planning our next Makey Makey Monstrosity, so expect some improvements.)

So did it work? It worked! People had a good time playing with it. Here’s a few photos…

Makey Players

Makey Players

Makey Players

Makey Players

Makey Players

Pro-tip for using apples: Keep some lemon juice on-hand! I gave the apples a squirt every now and then to keep them moist and prevent browning. Over the course of 4 hours I did have to change out the apples that were used as the mallets after they got a little mushy. Some people were really pounding on them!

Update: Here’s a short video of the first test of it.