Blake Bevin a member of Instructables.com took inspiration from Marty Mcfly’s Nike Mags from Back to the Future II, the self lacing hightop shoes, and created her own version using an Arduino board and sensors. He called this project, ‘Power Laces – the auto lacing shoe’.
“Operation is quite simple – step into the shoe and a force sensor reads the pressure of your foot and activates two servo motors, which apply tension to the laces, tightening the shoe. A touch switch reverses the servos.”
What he used:
- A shoe
- Arduino
- Motor shield
- Force sensor
- Servo Motors
- Sheet metal 4″ x 4″
- LED and a couple of resistors
- 9 Volt case, with built in battery clip and switch
- Insulated copper wire
- Plastic zip ties
- Plastic 1/2″ cable loops
- 1/8″ braided nylon paracord
Tools:
Soldering iron, screwdrivers & hot glue gun
A USB A to B cable Computer to load the Sketch to the Arduino
From what I have gathered, this prototype was developed in 2010. Fast forward to 2016, Nike have launched their Nike Mags, and Casey Neistat the gadget youtuber has been chosen as one of the first people to trial out the self-lacing shoes.
I tried to find details of how these new Nike Mag replicas were made but I couldn’t find anything online. But I assume it was made using pretty much the same sensors and equipment as Blake used in her Power Laces, only using a lot tinier and aesthetic pieces of hardware. Step into the shoe, and pressure sensors set off the laces. The laces fasten to a comfortable position, which is calculated by finding the amount of pressure put on certain sensors.
This project by Blake is within the top 20 Unbelievable Arduino projects of all time, proving how easy it is for anyone to create a piece of physical computing technology from their homes.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Power-Laces-the-Auto-lacing-shoe/
Physical Computing 