I knew from the start that I wanted two designs so that I could enable a call-and-response interaction between two users. My idea was that a user could wear the "dating app" out to a club or bar and if they saw someone they liked they could signal to them. The other party could then interact with the user as they might choose, or, if they were also a PLUME user, they could use their own wearable to signal back their interest. 

To create the wearables I designed two backpacks to hold servos that the user can control via a potentiometer attached to the straps on the front and wired around to the back. I laser-cut acrylic extensions that I attached to the servo arms to extend the servo movement and extensions past the wearer's head, similar to how a bird's feathers might stick out. 

When a PLUME user wants to send a signal to a potential mate, all they have to do is turn the knob of the potentiometer. In the Bird of Paradise model this simply maps the potentiometer's value to the servo, so that the arm's movement will wave back and forth in accordance to the potentiometer's movement. In the Peacock model the potentiometer's values are mapped to two separate servos, which move the arms away from each other and back in in accordance to the potentiometer's state.