Physical interaction design DH2400

We had a sort of a button workshop and here are some notes from that:

To connect the wires to the tin foil we first winded steelwire with the wire and then taped the steelwire with gaffa tape on to the tinfoil. This had the positive sideeffect of giving the tinfoil strength while it maintained its flexibillity. To connect to a Phidget just put one wire in Ground and the other in digital in. When the two layers of foil connect you will get an 1 from the Phidget. If you user SunSpot or Arduino there should be a resister in between to avoid shortcut. Try experimenting with different patterns in the middle piece of foam rubber (skumgummi) and see whats works best for your kind of button. Also, you don't have to have the extra layer of foam rubber on the two sides of foil, we just had that to make the buttons more robust in our punchbag.

It's also possible to glue the tinfoil on the material you would use for your button, but the tinfoil will more easy get shredded when bended. So this is only a good solution if your making buttons on hard material.

The Foam rubber can be bought in most handcraft stores like Panduro Hobby and cost about 45 SEK for 50x50 cm.