Tuesday: Prototype and Documentation

Yesterday marked a small milestone in the Chord Board project, we completed a first stage prototype for the device itself. The unit was completely contained within the original MaKey MaKey box and only requires ten of the inputs rather than twenty one. We used regular old nickel plated tacks for the tactile buttons used to trigger each chord. Only ten connective wires were necessary for the whole project. I was particularly pleased with how clean the project looked on the inside. See for yourselves...

Conveniently the faceplate is attached to the top of the MaKey MaKey box with the same tacks that carry the connection from our fingers to the wires and finally into the MaKey MaKey itself. We found that the tacks provided not only a method of keeping design together but also gave a very nice button-like feel that will definitely enhance the end user experience, all at a low cost. Also, the inside connections are much less and more clean than we had once imagined. In most cases the connective wires have been trimmed so as not to leave an excess of wire and create unnecessary clutter. The final connection between the wires and the Nickel tacks was made by first clipping one end pin off from the connecting wire, then twisting the bare wire around the pointy end of the Tack from the inside the MaKey MaKey box. Here is what the inside looks like...

All good things! However, we did hear back from one of the creators of MaKey MaKey, Eric Rosenbaum, who said that the number of inputs on the board is limited to twenty. This means that our original design would never have worked in the first place. Hooray for simplification! Progress is also being made on the sound library. Piano, Acoustic Guitar and Vocal samples for the C Major Diatonic scale have been completed and uploaded to the backpack in our Scratch Studio. Currently, we are in the process of making an informative video presentation to go along with our submission to the MaKey MaKey contest. Filming began this morning and we will additionally make more specialized videos to post up so that those who want an in depth, visual display of how we put together the MaKey MaKey chord board.

Now, flying into Final Cut for some color correction and editing, fun times!