This past Friday, Commack High School held its annual Halloween Happening. At this event, families from the community come to the high school to trick-or-treat through the hallways and daringly walk through the student-run haunted house. Once the families reach the end of their journeys, they are welcomed into the cafeteria where different clubs have various setups and food to share with the children. This year, Commack's Technology Honor Society and Future Engineers Club decided to make a few new additions to their table in order to attract the children.
In order to excite the children, we decided to bring back our height sensor, which has been a major hit the past few years. With the use of various sensors, the height sensor is a device that measures a person's height when they stand underneath it. We made up a game where kids were rewarded a piece of candy if their guessed height was within two inches of the measured value.
Another project we chose to make again was the Makey Makey. The Makey Makey is a device that allows for any conductive material to become a touch sensor. By hooking it up to the computer with alligator clips and downloading the necessary software, it can act as a keyboard. Then, by taking another alligator clip and hooking it up to a ground pin on the Makey Makey, the conductive material can register as a key press. Evidently, when kids put a hand on the ground ball and touched any of the hooked up pumpkins we had, the device made a noise that came out of a speaker. We decided to carve a pumpkin and insert the speaker inside, so it would sound like the pumpkin was making the noise. In addition to the speaker, we also placed sound sensors into the pumpkin so LEDs would light up whenever the pumpkin made a noise.
The most popular attraction to the children was our newest addition: Little Bits. The technology department recently purchased Little Bits, since we've had our eyes on them since we viewed them at the Maker Faire. Little Bits are tiny magnetic modules that can be connected to a battery. When placed together correctly, certain modules light-up, spin, or even make noises. Some children also liked adding buttons or sliders switches where they can control the intensity of the sound or light modules themselves. Kids of all ages found it appealing to make the devices move on their own.
~Ashley
