11/18 Semester Project Process post #5 - Jen Herrera

After our prototype crit the general consensus was that my plush should be more realistic to better communicate interspecies communication. For this, I ordered some faux fur fabric to construct the toy out of. My main concern with using long fur was that a patch of conductive fabric, like I meant to use with short plush fur, would look like an ugly bald spot in the middle of the plush.

That's why for my second mini project I was investigating using the conductive thread for capacitive touch. My theory was that if I could sew rows into the fur, parting it where I sewed and then brushing the fur back over it, that I could get capacitive touch action that was nearly undetectable to the eye.

My fur came in this week and I got to work testing; good news, with a very low threshold (to make up for the lack of direct contact due to the fur) it works!

Video:

I'm super thrilled about this. I think it will look SO much better than the short pile fabric with patches of rough, unpleasant conductive thread. Concept wise, I love that the signal comes from just touching the fur of the 'animal' with no visible interface. It'll be so much closer to petting a cat and getting a reaction out of it!

I also found a free-to-use cat pattern in the general shape I was going to design one in. So I'm going to save myself a little time and just tweak that pattern since it's nearly an exact image of what I want.