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Hey guys, Michael here. Big milestone achieved this week: the first armband prototype has been crafted! It's nothing special yet, just two shells, some strips of conductive fabric, and some strips of separator material. As far as the separator material goes, we ended up going with felt, just like Dr. Hammond. I had planned on using some sheets of thin foam that I found at Hobby Lobby, but initial tests revealed that there were a few issues with that.
First, I had planned on punching holes in the separator material, just like in Dr. Hammond's design, but I wanted to used an actual punch instead of trying to cut them manually. A regular hole punch wouldn't reach to the center of the material (remember, it's a three-inch square), so I had to get a free-standing punch that you place on the material to be punched and tap down with a hammer to actually do work. The largest punch size was still too small though: the conductive strips wouldn't connect when you pushed down. In addition, the foam wasn't compressible enough, and our fingers kept getting caught up at the holes.
SO! I had a new idea: cut strips and arrange them in a crosshatch pattern. This would allow more empty space not taken up by separator material and therefore (hopefully) allow for better sensitivity. We started with one layer of separator material, i.e. in one direction, or in between the columns and not rows, and were ready to get everything hooked up and tested out!
Tune in next week!
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