Michi

For whom is Michi?

People 6 years and older, educators, artists, engineers, designers, inventors and creators.

How does it work?

The Michi uses high resistance switching to detect when it has made a connection even with materials that are not very conductive (such as leaves, pasta or people). This technique attracts, Michi can also act as a keyboard or mouse. There are 10 inputs on the front of the board, which can be linked via alligator wires or any other method you can think of. There are another 5 inputs on the back, 3 for keyboard keys and 2 for mouse movement, which can be accessed with jumpers.

When you touch the apple, you make a connection, and Michi sends the computer a keyboard message. The computer sees Michi as an ordinary keyboard (or mouse). Therefore, it works with all programs, operating systems and web pages, since all programs and web pages receive information from the keyboard and mouse.

What materials work with Michi?

Any material that can conduct a little electricity will work. Here are some materials that people have used in our workshops: Ketchup or tomato sauce, Pencil Graphite, Finger Paint, Lemons, etc.

Other materials that work very well: plants, coins, silverware, anything wet, most foods, aluminum foil, water, and hundreds of things we haven’t tried.

What can I do?

That’s up to you! First, load a computer program or any web page. Let’s say you load a piano. Then, instead of using the buttons on the computer keyboard to play the piano, you can connect Michi to something fun, like bananas, and the bananas become your piano keys.

Or let’s say you search for a Pacman game online and draw a joystick with a pencil. Then you can play Pacman by touching the drawing. The kit includes everything you need: Michi Board, alligator cable, USB cable.