I stopped by the MaKey MaKey booth at Maker Faire on Sunday and was very impressed by what I saw. They appear to have everything needed to make a successful Kickstarter campaign: a cool product, working versions of the product, a clear and concise plan, and most of all a lot of enthusiasm and love for what they have created.
MaKey MaKey in its default state is a combination USB keyboard and mouse with a very simple and hackable physical interface. Unlike a regular keyboard, or even the specialized USB devices made for MAME cabinets, the MaKey definition of a switch is rather loose. Anything that can pass a little current will suffice, including metal, electrolytes, Play-Doh, and even human bodies.
They had a lot of examples set up in the booth and kids of all ages were playing and having a lot of fun. I heard a few good ideas from the kids, and my daughter came up with a few of her own as we made our way back to the GeekDad booth.
Check out the video for some of the examples, and post some comments below if you have any other ideas. Jay Silver was nice enough to give me an evaluation board and my daughter and I will be thinking up a few projects ourselves to run this week and over the weekend.
