Coding Kits

Makey Makey Kits 

The Port Moody Public Library has 12 brand new Makey Makey kits available for loan! These kits were made available through a generous grant from the Port Moody Foundation.

What is a Makey Makey?

Makey Makey is a circuit board that lets you use real life objects, in place of your computer keyboard or mouse, to provide input to your computer. For example, to make a character jump in a game, instead of pressing the “space” key, you can press an apple instead!

A Makey Makey kit is most commonly used with games and animations built with Scratch, a block-based coding language.

How do I borrow a Makey Makey kit?

You can check out a Makey Makey kit with your library card from our Accounts Desk.

Borrowing guidelines are:

• Loan period: 21 days
• No renewals
• Late fees: $0.35 per day

Want a kit but none are available? Place a hold on a Makey Makey kit through the online catalogue.

How do I return a Makey Makey kit?

Please return your Makey Makey kit directly to the Accounts Desk. Do not attempt to return the kit to the book drop.

Check to make sure you have all the parts in the container. The kit should include:

• 1 Makey Makey Circuit Board
• 1 USB Cable
• 8 Alligator Clips

How to use a Makey Makey

• Watch this video to learn how to set up the Makey Makey kit with your computer.
• Try these project ideas from the Makey Makey site, including:
  
  • Banana piano
  • Code an interactive story
  • Make a cardboard guitar
  • Make a toilet paper roll tilt sensor controller
• Remix Scratch projects the Library has created to be used with the Makey Makey
• Check out these other resources 
  • A YouTube playlist curated by Surfing Scratcher
  • All time favourite fan projects selected by the creators of Makey Makey
  • How-to guide and project ideas by Colleen Graves on YouTube 

Learn coding with the Library

The Library has different resources to help you learn how to code:

• See our programs and events calendar for our current beginner and intermediate level coding workshops.
• Search our online catalogue for coding books or check out our Coding Booklist.
• Take online video courses through LinkedIn Learning to learn Scratch with step-by-step tutorials.
• Watch our Byte-Sized Coding Time tutorials on our YouTube Channel.