An innovative side of sneaker design

[MUSIC PLAYING] SARAH FAY: The mechanical properties that we care about when we think about the midsoles of the running shoe are how stiff it is at each different point and how those points correspond to the spots during the gait. So when you step down on the ground, when you're running, you land often in the heel area. So how stiff is the material here? And then as you move through your stride, you move to the front of the shoe, where traditionally, it's much stiffer. We in the sports lab work at the intersection of biomechanics, data science, and engineering, and currently, we're working on the design of 3D printed running shoes. 3D printing technology right now is at a point where we can mass manufacture these, which are the midsoles of the running shoe, which are traditionally made of a uniform foam material. And using this technology, we can make running shoes that have a much wider range of mechanical properties. We can change the geometry of the structure all along the length of the shoe without having to change the material, like we would have to do in a uniform foam material. And we can start to customize the running shoes to different runners. The sports lab has been working in sports for a long time, and we have a lot of great collaborative industry partners. Adidas is one of them. They came to us because they wanted to know what should they print in order to make the highest performing running shoe, and how should they make that decision? So our goal was to create a model that can successfully predict how new geometries and designs will perform on runners without having to make the shoe. So we use existing data for running shoes that have that foam midsole to compare the results of our model and the predictions that it makes to real running data. And then we use our model to predict how the runners would perform in unknown futuristic shoes that we can make with the 3D printing technology. Right now, they're being sold as a cool shoe. There is novelty in it. Ultimately, we imagine a world where everybody can have a personalized 3D printed running shoe, just for them. Even that they can provide a video of themselves running, and then we can really tune the properties using the lattice geometry to give them the shoe that's right for them and will make them perform their best. [MUSIC PLAYING]

Channel: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Views: 46,677

Keywords: #sneakers, #design, #shoe, #sports, #running, #sports lab, #MIT, #adidas, #performance, #3-D printing, #lattice, #modeling, #mechanical engineering, #computer science

Id: IXiTxDKamcg

Length: 2min 31sec (151 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 24 2024