Inspiration - A few years ago Luke invested in an Indiegogo Campaign for a product with the same basic idea of have a smart shoe with a display. That project fell through, but ever since then Luke has always wanted to try and put a display in a shoe.
What it does - each shoe takes in different information depending on what the goal is and displays it on the screen on the side of the shoe. One has a Pedometer in it and displays the step count and the other has a blue tooth module in it.
How we built it - We did a lot of breadboard prototyping to figure out exactly what we would have each shoe do. Since we had two shoes we wanted to show off the variety of possibilities and have each one do something different. Once we figured out the exact circuits for each shoe we started hollowing one out to figure how to fit all of the components into one. Then we got into a CAD program and started designing different mounting frames and ports to 3D-print to make the whole product look clean and professional.
Challenges we ran into - Some of the programming was especially difficult such as figuring out exactly what we wanted to display on the Bluetooth module shoe and how we would do it. Another huge hurtle was getting all of the components to fit nicely into a shoe without looking bulky and uncomfortable.
Accomplishments that we're proud of - The Pedometer shoe went fairly well, with very few hiccups in the design process. Another big one is, of the many hurtles that Kevin was able to solve, a huge one was getting both the shoe to automatically shut off when it's plugged in to charge and getting the power button that activates the LED display on the battery to double as a on/ off button.
What we learned - Kevin is immensely knowledgeable with CAD and arduino programming. Google can be a huge friend when it comes to trouble shooting electrical components. And knowing each members strengths on a team and playing towards them can really help in all aspects of doing a project from how long it takes to how much the people on the team enjoy it what they are working on.
What's next for Lucent - A huge part of doing this was to one, fulfill a dream of Luke's and two just have a really fun project for two friends to work on together. However we do really believe in the future of wearable technologies, especially wearable displays. We would love to take some of the lessons learned here and some new ideas that we have been forming throughout this experience and come back next year with another amazing project.
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