Whack an Elf with Scratch and Makey Makey

This is a great opportunity to show students that coding can be a lot of fun, and it doesn’t have to be scary. Many high school students with little to no prior coding experience often automatically think they “can’t do it”. Get them hooked by giving them the chance to relive a silly game from their childhood with a holiday twist. Not only that, they can make it their own once they learn how to swap out the pictures. They will have buy-in. This holiday-themed Whack-a-Mole game uses a Makey Makey kit and Scratch coding. If you want to do the easier version, without making modifications to the premade code, this lesson can be used with elementary students as well as long as they have been taught the basics of circuits. The lesson was written with high school students in mind, with the aim of doing both the engineering design challenge and modifying the game as well.