Pleasantville Middle Schoolers Create Fun and Games with Technology

Aliya, a sixth grader, picked up a ball of tinfoil and lobbed it at a small, tinfoil-lined basketball hoop. After a few misses, Aliya made the basket and a song from High School Musical played on her laptop.

“Together. Together. We’re all in this together.”

Aliya was playing Bolton Basket, a game that she and two classmates -- Phoebe and Audrey – designed and built using MakeyMakey, an invention kit that can turn everyday objects into computer keys. Students can make just about anything control their computers by connecting a USB cable and alligator clips to MakeyMakey’s special circuit board.

“Instead of using your arrow keys and a space bar, we put wires into the MakeyMakey and it acts like the keys on your laptop,” 11-year-old Aliya said. “It creates a closed circuit. I did not know anything about circuits before. We used tinfoil because it can make electricity more easily than other materials.”

Still, she said, her favorite part of the project was decorating the diorama with big colorful letters and googly eyes stuck onto pictures of famous teen actors.

That was all right with Marissa Fraher, the Pleasantville Middle School librarian who teaches sixth and seventh grade STEAM and fifth grade Inquiry Lab. She is in favor of whatever it takes to get students excited about science and technology.

“We work on a variety of engineering activities in sixth grade STEAM Lab, from designing a theme restaurant to digital citizenship to 3D design basics,” Fraher said. “Learners engage in a variety of STEAM experiences that expand upon prior work in mechanical, civil and electrical engineering fundamentals.”

MakeyMakey was the final project of the quarter for the sixth graders. Other students in the class used the special circuit boards to create soccer games, a claw machine and mini golf, among other fun projects.