Hands-on with Makey Makey
You built three toys with Claude. Now connect the real world to your code.
Now add a banana
Clip Makey Makey to fruit, foil, or playdough and those keys become things you can touch.
Same toys, same code — just a new way to press the keys.
That is the bridge between the real world and code: your touch becomes a tiny signal, the computer reads it, and your toy responds — piano, memory game, catch game, even Mario.
Ideas to try
- Bananas on the arrow keys turn the catch game into a body controller.
- Four bananas become the four pads of the memory game.
- Ask Claude for one more change — your own sounds, new colours, a high score.
Plug in Makey Makey
Connect the board to your laptop via USB.
Clip to conductive objects
Attach alligator clips to fruit, foil, or playdough for the keys you want.
Hold the Earth bar
Touch the metal Earth bar with your other hand to complete the circuit.
Play your toy
Open the same Claude Artifact or demo — touch the banana instead of pressing a key.
Adding the hardware changes nothing in the code — the banana just presses Space or an arrow for you. Encourage small tweaks: ask Claude to change the sounds, colours, or add a high score.
Bonus: Super Mario showcase
You built three toys on the free claude.ai. Here is the ceiling: a playable Super Mario level — every pixel and sound drawn in code, no image or sound files at all.
This one was made with Fable 5, one of Claude's paid models, driven through Claude Code — a developer tool, not the browser chat. You are not expected to rebuild it today. It plays with the same arrows, Space, and Click, so a Makey Makey runs it too.
The whole prompt — one sentence:
Create a Mario mini-game with high fidelity and precision, and make it look visually appealing.
A full pixel-art Mario level — the ceiling, made with Claude's pro tools.
This Mario demo is optional inspiration, not a student build-along. Skip it if you are short on time.
Next: Your turn →