This past week we had a play testing session with one of the other Physical Computing sections. 
It was good to see people who hadn’t heard of my project before approach it for the first time. Also, it seems that the people with musical performance and production experience almost immediately understood the usage and potential. Very encouraging.
I’ve been a bit obsessed with having a low profile and slick fabrication of the Mic Cuff. The grip and feel of it is as much a functional interface question as it is about the aesthetic appeal. I went out on a limb with an idea, trying to work with bent acrylic.
I had done some measurements and cut a couple rectangles to work with. But I needed to practice on a scrap piece first and see how this might work.
Definitely takes a while to understand the feel of bending acrylic, but I got something functional. And I was pretty happy with the sturdiness.
Moving onto the main piece.
Not too bad. Felt good in the hand. The next step was figuring out how to mount onto the surface effectively. Keep in mind, the inside of the cuff has to be smooth in order to accommodate the mic.
In order to make it as light and as uncluttered as possible, I decided to move the board off of the cuff. Wires will go to a separate controller, which will then plug into the computer via USB.
Moving onto my button mounting concept
I want to use cork as a way to mount the buttons. The protoboard, while providing a space and security for soldering, can also serve as a kind of “slot” system for inserting the buttons. Cork provides a kind of tacticle/ergonomic “landing pad” for fingers and finger tips to grip the mic.
I played around with a few different approaches.
Cracking can potentially be an issue, but I found a solution that so far has felt fairly secure.
Then I further sculpted the cork to create more of a natural grip.
As of right now, I have mounted the pieces with double sided tape. Fairly secure but seems to be remove-able and not irrevocably permanent.
The grip feels good in the hand, and I am actually surprised this works as well as it does. I’ve ordered some terminal blocks off of Adafruit so I can attach the wires to the Teensy without having to permanently attach them (in case I need to trouble shoot) but keeping it sturdy and secure (so I hopefully don’t have to trouble shoot).
Feeling good about the physical progress. I’m going to continue refining the software while I wait for my order to come in.