Piezo shoe

Xiao Xiao

Design Tasks

  1. Figure out internal structure of heel
  2. Design external form of shoe: heel + uppers
  3. Rework circuit for bigger piezo clicker

This week, I worked on my top priority task to figure out internal support structures for the shoe. This involves 2 parts:

  • Support structure for feet
  • Mechanism for piezo clicker

Support for Feet

I wanted to make wedge heels because they have the most room inside to fit eletronics. For reference, I bought a cheap pair of wedges and took one apart. I learned a couple of things

  1. The inside is supported by a stiff lattice system.
  2. Since the shoe doesn’t bend, its front curves up to allow you to step

Piezo Mechanism

Model

High heeled shoes have supports for feet at places: balls and heel. Since the piezo element will support the heel, I only copied the lattice for the balls of the foot in my design.

 

Here’s how the button mechanism works. The  clicker will be fixed by 2 horizontal pieces to its box. When the wearer steps down, the button is depressed. The deflection to reset the clicker occurs when the foot lifts.

The clicker will probably have additional reinforcements, but I will design those shapes after I figure out the shape and size of the power circuit.

 

 

Onwards

I will lasercut my model this weekend and tweak measurements according to how it fits my foot. In terms of design, the next step is to model the outside contours and how it will integrate with the internal structure. As indicated in the sketch, I plan to build the outside by stacking and gluing flat pieces together.

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