Keyboard Builder lesson plans
Each one is a class period with everything to run it: a teacher plan, a student worksheet, an exit ticket with answers, and the standards it meets. Students need no account, and a free class saves their work.
Keyboard Builder: The Key Nobody Pressed
Students open a 61-key keyboard and see its wiring: 5 rows and 14 columns, 19 pins where one wire per key would need 61. They hold Q, W and A and the board sees four keys: S lights up, and nobody pressed it. They fix it with a diode at every switch, then try the cheaper fix, a controller that blocks the doubt, and watch it throw a real key away.
FreeKeyboard Builder: A Keyboard Never Sends a Letter
A 61-key keyboard has no arrow keys. Students open its keymap, the table inside the keyboard that says what each key sends, and put the four arrows on I, J, K and L on a second layer reached by holding Fn. On the Type bench they press the same I key twice: once it sends code 0C and the computer shows an i, and with Fn held it sends code 52, the code for Up. They finish by making Caps Lock send Backspace.
FreeKeyboard Builder: Find What Broke
Three customers bring in keyboards that stopped working. One has a dead H key, one lost T and the keys above and below it on the same day, and one types 8 when 7 is pressed. Students test keys on the Matrix bench, read the pattern the dead keys make, and choose one repair: a switch, a column line or a row line. A wrong repair is a part replaced for nothing, and the customer says so. The third fault has no broken part at all: the keymap was changed.
FreeKeyboard Builder: Build to the Order
Four customers each describe how they use a keyboard and how much they have to spend. Students build a board for each one from five sizes, six switches, four cases and two keycap plastics, and the customer answers the way a person would, one complaint at a time. The backpack board closes at $80.20 of $85. The school store board has exactly one build that fits its $125. Students record each build and say which need drove each choice.