Posted on by Katie Henry

Help Pete Find His Beat

Most people don’t know this, but there is a reason Peter Cottontail always came hip-hoppin’ down the bunny trail. 

He was a famous DJ, and he loved to make music. Though the secret to his music lived in his tail.

One day a terrible DJ accident happened and Peter lost his cottontail.

Now he is just known as “Pete who lost his beat.”

Can you help Pete find his beat? 

A sock-bunny, a micro:bit clipped to a glove, and a MaKey MaKey. These are all the first drafts of my attempts.

Skills

  • Use physical objects to control digital animations and sound
  • Use math (you won’t realize you did)
  • Use music (you’ll probably realize you did)

What you get

  • Three ways to help Pete find his beat using micro:bit, MaKey MaKey, and Scratch
  • Loads of supplemental teaching resources for music, coding and Scratch 3.0

Part 1  – Make Pete, micro:bit glove, and MaKey MaKey dance pad 

Materials:

Pete: 1 sock, fist-full of stuffing, two rubber bands, and scissors

micro:bit glove: glove, binder clip, micro:bit with battery pack

MaKey MaKey dance pad: 1 file folder, aluminum foil (about the size of half a sheet of computer paper), glue, scissors, MaKey MaKey

First, make Pete.

Pete is a sock bunny.

Pete is just a sock bunny. Follow this tutorial to make your own. If you don’t like this tutorial, search “No sew sock bunny” to find many versions. You can also search “No sew sock animal” to finds lots of other creatures to make with a sock.

Materials: 1 sock, fist-full of stuffing, two rubber bands, and scissors.

Glue a piece of foil onto the bottom of Pete. This will help him to dance on the MaKey MaKey dance pad.

Glue foil onto the bottom of Pete. This is how Pete will complete the circuit on the MaKey MaKey dance pad.

Second, make your micro:bit glove.

Materials: glove, binder clip, micro:bit with battery pack

Clip the micro:bit to a glove with a binder clip. Connect the battery pack and slide it into the glove.
A deleted scene from Stranger Things when the micro:bit starts to flash lights and communicate a message from another world. Just kidding.

Get your micro:bit glove ready to control Scratch

Go to this website: https://scratch.mit.edu/microbit

1.) Install “Scratch Link”

2) Install “Scratch micro:bit Hex“

Third, Make MaKey MaKey Dance Pad 

Materials: 1 file folder, aluminum foil (about the size of half a sheet of computer paper), glue, scissors

It would be fun to redesign this as a bunny trail for Pete to come hip-hoppin’ down. Or the surface of Mars. It’s really up to you

Pete will dance to the left in Scratch when he is in this position.

I gave Pete three moves  on my dance pad, though in the picture above, only move 2 is connected.

  1. When Space Key Pressed
  2. When Left Arrow Pressed
  3. When Right Arrow Pressed

See all three moves on the MaKey MaKey dance pad in action here (video starts immediately with dance moves).

 

Now you should have a sock animal, micro:bit glove, and MaKey MaKey dance pad.

Part 2 – Coding in Scratch

Open Scratch and add the micro:bit and MaKey MaKey extensions.

Choose a stage and sprite that you like. I took a picture of Pete and uploaded him into Scratch to use as my sprite. 

I used this video to help me to remove Pete’s background in Scratch.

Now, help Pete find his beat. Try this code. How else can you help Pete? 

See this code in action with the micro:bit and MaKey MaKey (video starts immediately at code in action).

Have fun! I can’t wait to see how you help Pete to find his beat.  <3 KatieDays

Want more with music, coding, and Scratch 3.0 ? Thank you to Jared O’Leary from BootUpPD for sharing these resources with me.

Jumping Game with Music- https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/75311050/

Jumping Game with Sound Effects-https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/78887338/

Toggle Music with a Button-https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1pLnYS5j_20OrqzVdk5hPMTIip8scpEkaXqo-lCbZKWE/edit?usp=sharing

Create  Music Player-https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vgbzvO_I4vEIEvYxRZehxuLu6c7vt8s5Mr97o1LKq3o/edit?usp=sharing

Make Music with Ten Block Challenge- https://docs.google.com/document/d/16t0p6zIsFabKhmXKaTZSIxs1nxejegQukmz1MjpFt-c/edit?usp=sharing

More resources from Jared himself-                  https://jaredoleary.com/music-coding

Beatbox Machine- https://docs.google.com/document/d/1C0DpoBDRHdbIWs4hcn7g4HjI86Mpjv2U2blGjjFT20k/edit?usp=sharing

This blog post was created from the ideas shared by Colleen Graves and Katie Henry in the two webinars below. 

Let’s Invent! Celebrate Scratch Month with MaKey MaKey and micro:bit!

Let’s Invent! Celebrate Scratch Month Episode Two with MaKey MaKey and micro:bit!

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