Dance Mats
Dance Mats
To show kids how to make their own controllers for computer games I helped The Creative Learning Lab to develop a design process for doing just that, which only requires very basic materials and skills.
This fab moment shows an example of this concept, explaining how to make an interactive dance mat for the open source computer game Stepmania, which is comparable to the famous arcade game Dance Dance Revolution.
If you would like to make your own, you’ll need the following tools and materials:
- computer keyboard
- about 10 meters of isolated wire
- aluminum foil
- cardboard
- sheet of foam
- tape
- glue
- needle
- knife
- wire stripper
- scissors
When you open the keyboard you’ll find that there’s three layers of plastic on top of each other. Where the upper- and lower one have conductive wiring on them, the middle one only features holes all over it. This keeps the upper- and bottom layer from connecting until you press a key.
What you need to do next is to identify which circular areas correspond to the arrow keys on the top cover. Once you’ve found them you need to isolate these circles from the wires that connect them, by placing tape or sticker material on the surrounding areas.
The next step is to create small holes in the circles using a needle, this helps you attaching the wires properly later on.
First you need to cut the wire into eight equal parts, and strip the isolation off the wire on both ends. Then you fold a small piece of aluminum foil a couple times over, and stick a similar sized hole in it. You feed the stripped part of one side of the wire through this hole in the aluminum foil and repeat this process seven times until every wire has a piece of foil attached on one side of it.
Now you can put these through the holes in the circles one by one, as far as possible, so that the aluminum foil touches the circular connector. When the wire is through you bend it 180 degrees so that it forms a hook, this way it won’t get pulled out by accident.
To ensure that the foil properly connects with the circles you apply some tape on both sides so it won’t go anywhere.
Pay attention from which side you put the wire through, because only the sides that are directed toward each other are conductive. If you do this for all eight wires you’re ready to test the principle. Attach the keyboard to your computer and open a random text document. Place the cursor somewhere in the middle and connect the back end of two wires that correspond to the same direction. Probably the cursor will now start moving in the direction you anticipated. If nothing happens, check whether the aluminum foil is still properly connected, and reattach it if not.
When all the directions are working properly it’s time to start creating the dance mat itself. This part consists of three layers. The upper- and bottom one are made out of cardboard, the middle one out of foam. The shape of the mat is entirely up to you. The only requirements are that it features four distinct directions and a spot in the middle to stand on in idle mode. When you’ve defined a shape you cut it out three times, using the materials I just mentioned. This mats are following the same principle as the keyboard did. Two conducting layers are separated by an isolating layer with holes in it where the buttons are. If you’ve assigned the location of the arrows (or a more imaginative directional shape) you apply a sheet of aluminum foil on the corresponding spot on the cardboard cutouts, and you let the foil face each other. In between you place the foam layer with holes in it at the same locations.
Now it’s time to bring in the wires and connect them to the aluminum foil, using tape. For each direction there are two wires to connect, one to the upper cardboard layer, one to the bottom one. When this is done you can test whether it all still works, and if it does you can seal the three layers together using tape along the whole contour of the mat. If you want you can also decorate the mat’s surface with all kinds of tinkering materials.
To show this concept in the lab I’ve applied a similar process to some floor tiles. However, instead of aluminum foil I used adhesive copper foil, and instead of taping the wire to the keyboard I removed its circuit board and soldered the connections right onto it.
If you want to do this yourself you’ll need to figure out what pin combination creates the right electronic pulses for mimicking the arrow keys.
The game can be downloaded for free at http://www.stepmania.com. The main download doesn’t include any songs yet, so don’t forget do download some song packs as well.
Have fun dancing.!
