Summing up.  I want the rose to close when the petals/mount move down inside the stem, and I want to drive them directly from the servo.  I can't do that yet.   Read on if you want...

I think I really want the rose petals, and the mount that holds them... to move down to close.

The best part of the reasoning behind this is that if the petals/mount move down to close, then I can use a much smaller 'stem' to contain them when they are in the down/fully closed position.  Aka... completely hide the mechanism which furls (hello Collin), and unfurls the petals.

The problem is that if I spring the rose so that it is NC (normally closed for those of you who have never wired a microswitch), then to open it by moving the mounting point for the rose, I need to move... down.  (ok..  I've officially confused myself)

I can't push on the inside/top part of the rose petals to open moving down either.  The petals overlap too much to give me much beyond 2mm of leverage above the pivot, that is the inside of the curve of where I was 'melting' them, and pushing just the inside petal and allowing the motion to transfer looked really bad.

I'm speaking in terms of what is the easiest engineering solution here.  Pushing on tabs to make the opposite end of something move is *way* easier than pulling on the same tabs... if the number of tabs is greater than one or in this case, consuming an entire surface.  However. pulling on something from a servo is also *way* easier than pushing on it.

Right now my petals would open by moving the mounting point down, or moving the pressure point up.  Same difference.. but the opposite of what i want if I want this to be...perfect.

I have not figured it out.

This is somewhat hard to explain I am finding..

I apologize if my 10k words do not equal one non-existent mental picture right now, and I do not want to waste the time beyond words.  When I figure it out... you will see.  :)

Caution... this article contains a bold space.  You have been warned.