Now that I had my material sorted out, I started to create rough cuff structures from the aluminium. I experimented with a variation of designs to see which structure would sit on the ear the best. It was also important for me to consider which part of the ear the cuff will attach too.
I tested out these different designs on my ear. The first 3 designs sat on my ear well but after a little movement they fell off - they were not very stable. Another negative of these designs was that they were not comfortable and made my ear go red.
To improve these designs I decided to modify the outer edges of the aluminium. The edges of aluminium are sharp so I decided to soften the edges by folding the edge of the aluminium inwards and them filing it down, this ensured that the aluminium would not cut or cause my ear any pain.
I then went on to develop these designs by adding some folds where the ear naturally curves so the cuff would sit comfortably.
I reached a final cuff design and now that I had the design out the way I could now focus on the technological aspect. As I am only creating prototype I have decided to use a existing bluetooth headphone and attach my design to it. I would have normally design the bluetooth piece myself but as I have limited time and not much knowledge in creating headphones, this is the most logical decision to make.
I ordered a white bluetooth ear piece from Ebay and worked my design around it. I tried to construct the cuff I had made to the bluetooth ear piece but this process proved to be very difficult. The bluetooth ear piece sits in the ear and the cuff attaches to the edge of the ear and joining these to pieces together while keeping the overall design comfortable was not possible. I then decided that instead of attaching the bluetooth headphone to my design, I need to design the jewellery around the headphone.
I then went on to develop my designs even further and came up with a range of ideas for my prototype. I narrowed these designs down to a final prototype.
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