Progress is being made on outfit #1.  I’ve ordered the leather for the pants and gotten yarn for the hoodie sweater.  I worked through how to assemble the support structure for the extendable hood.  I spent the weekend 3D printing a support base for the collar and motors to help everything stay stable.  The servo motors I purchased worked perfectly with the Adafruit motor shield.  They’re very tiny and quite strong, so I think they’ll work just fine.  Tomorrow I’m going to finish assembly and testing of the collar/hood support and drape the fabric portions of the sweater.  I’m also hoping to start machine knitting the fabric.

I’m beginning to get a little concerned about the viability of the capacitive sensing apparatus.  I’ve tried a variety of techniques (adding more resistance, adding a non-conductive layer to shield, applying smoothing to the sensor readings) and things still seem to be all over the board.  Also, I haven’t been able to get the range I want.  I’m going to run the mock-up past a couple of people this week, but if I can’t get a solid outcome I’m going to pursue plan B, namely a different sensor technology.  I’m considering this product from Sparkfun:

https://www.sparkfun.com/products/12785

It seems fairly straightforward to use with a decent range and very small package.  I want to make sure that I’m not wasting my time getting hung up on unproductive technology exploration instead of making progress.

I’ve been doing a good amount of research on the next outfit, which will be a dress that has a hem that inflates when triggered.  I’m researching materials and potential inflation methods now.