I plan on putting plywood on the top deck, but the front area needs to sense the presence of the rider.

The existing way this was done was to pivot the deck and use compression of some rubber bits to detect the rider.  The rubber bits have the advantage that they pop through to an extent, so the force required to keep them engaged is less than the force required to engage them.  That is kind of nice..

However, this open area directly under the rider's front foot gave me an idea

I think I'm going to try using cap-sense through the deck.

This drops the plywood altogether in lieu of two layers of poly carbonate, or one layer of AL and a layer of poly carbonate.  For the area with two layers, I will embed some copper foil.  With some luck this will still give me a signal when you step on it with your booted foot.

Doing that.

Did that.

A couple more panels and this part will be done.