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Step 2: Prepare fabric for Flex Sensor pockets

Step 3: Sow Flex Sensor pockets on the Glove

Next, you are going to sow your fabric cutouts to the glove. For better aesthetics, we sowed mine to the inside of the glove. However, if you find this too difficult, you can always sow them to the outside of the glove. Turn the glove inside out. Now, if you are able to, put the glove on one of you hands (e.g. if you turn the right glove inside out, put it on your left hand). Mark down the center of the glove fingers the approximate location of your finger joints (see picture). It's OK if you aren't super accurate. The basic idea here is to get some position markers so you line the flex sensor pockets up correctly.

Line up the fabric cutouts on each glove finger such that they are centered on the joint marks. We positioned my cutouts such that they did not cover the distal joint of each finger (aka the third joint which is the closest one to your finger nail). We did this because we only wanted to capture the bending of the first two joints of each finger since most people can't voluntarily control their third joint anyway. Note: The flex sensors can't tell a difference if you make one big bend or two smaller bends (that equal the big bend). Therefore, you are only detecting the overall bend of your finger... NOT the bend of each joint. If you would like to detect each joint bend, you would need a flex sensor per joint. Considering you can't change the length of the traditional flex sensor, this would make thing grow rather complex. We weren't concerned about the individual bends and was content with measuring the overall bend. Stitch both sides and the end closest to your fingertip of each cutout to each corresponding glove finger. (see picture) You are leaving the base end (closest to the palm) open so that you can slide in the flex sensors later on.

You are going to want to cut rectangle sections of the extra/spare/scrap fabric that you gathered. These sections are going to form pockets for the flex sensors to be slipped inside.

First, trace five outlines of a flex sensor on the fabric. We used a sliver sharpie to show up on the black fabric. Next, cut out the five outlines. Make sure to leave a little extra room for your stitching (e.g. the width of the sharpie pen marking) but not too much since you want the flex sensors to fit snuggly in the pockets.

Step 5: Attach Velcro to Glove and Flex Sensor

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