Synthesis

Why we made these choices:

1: Velcro is the most versatile of the options we considered, while medical tape can be fitted to any area of the body its a hassle for the user and non-reusable. Alternatively, elastic is reusable and is comfortable, however it can not easily be fitted to different areas of the body. Velcro seemed to be a compromise between the two, offering a reusable and versatile way to secure the device to the user.

2: Plastic, while slightly uncomfortable, is cheap, easy to prototype, and rigid to protect any of the components. 

3: The accelerometer + gyroscope offers us the ability to consider not just sudden changes in acceleration (as associated with jerk motions) but also changes in rotation, giving us insight even when the tic isn't linear motion.

4: Rather than try to hard-code thresholds for the motions which get detected as a tic, we want our software to be able to learn from its users as some of them may experience jerkier tics than others. Using some of the wearer's manually marked tics as training data, each device will set thresholds based off the wearer's history.

5: As the majority of device's weight comes from the battery, its very difficult to reduce the overall weight without reducing the battery size. Many of the other components are fixed in size or already incredibly lightweight, and sacrificing weight in the casing risks damaging the device. As such, the easiest way to keep down total weight is to reduce the size of the battery.

6: For the user's convenience, it would be easiest to transmit data via Bluetooth (or some other wireless protocol), not only for easy access but also as to reduce the processing power required on on our device by relying on the user's cell phone.

7: As increasing the battery size is already opposed to the decision we made to reduce weight, the only other major option available to us is to optimize our code to reduce current draw. We accounted for this trade-off already in our parts list.