For this assignment I wanted to make a soft, squeezable switch. I experimented with felt and aluminum fiber.
It worked fine, though playing with the ratios might be a good idea. Also, felting the aluminum fiber was not easy, it tended to clump together and was not very gentle on the felting needles. I bet there is a better way, my inexperience felting did not help... but it is easy to catch some better practice along the way. The best result came from extending the felt and interlacing fibers by hand, felting and folding over, putting more fibers, extending felting and folding over, putting more fibers.... so on.
Then I wanted to try out making a soft velcro switch that would give tactile and auditory feedback, instead of having an led... Conductive velcro exists, but it is pretty harsh. I simply sew the pieces of velcro with conductive thread.
It is three pieces attached together, to insure that there is conductive thread spread out over the surface area, otherwise it seems there would be a greater chance of not making a connection.
