The temporary wooden base I was using to hold my model ear to the screw attaching it to the body has finally broken. This means I need to quickly build a new model so that I can continue making sure that my current model is viable before designing behaviors and potentially printing a final body. The new ears are built around a hollow aluminum tube attached to a screw. The fact that it’s hollow makes it much easier to achieve the flat shape i need than the wood, which I had to sand down by hand.

Reconstructing the ears has also given me the opportunity to reconsider the mechanism I’ve been using to attach them to my past body designs. Previous designs relied on a tightened bolt to hold the ears in place inside a channel along the top of the body. This worked at the start, but the constant rotation of the ears meant that the bolts would eventually loosen, relying instead on the tautness of my control strings to hold the ear in place. Crimping aluminum directly onto the screws means that the rotation shouldn’t have any effect on the tightness of their attachment to the body, which should make the ears more reliable. As always, I’m still working on body redesigns in my free time.