This is an extra assignment to show new possibilities that I learned in fab academy 2013. This project will show specially the skills that i learned. I'm industrial designer, so the topics of electronics and programation and the integration of them in a product are the main objetive.
Musical Shoe
Applications and Implications
what will it do?
It is a musical shoe that will interact with the user. The idea is “if you feel the music you can create it, but only if you feel it” The idea of the project is to create tones with each step. The person cannot choose the musical tones, but is possible to control the times between tone and tone, so if the person will give this song his personal timing and personal expression.
Another achievement that I wanted to reach is to make an integrated design, working with the electronics circuits and the aesthetic of some tendencies and kinds of shoe.
who's done what beforehand?
Some references as inspiration for this work were musical shoes developed and patented, many are very commercial like this video of nike.
There were showed similar ideas, but the thing I would like to make is to mix the movements of each step to complete a song with background music. First I developed just the interface to make music with shoes, and of course to have a different tone for each step.
what materials and components will be required?
For making the product cheaper and to reach more people I decided to make a complement for shoes, this could be able to install in any shoe. The materials are: a fabduino (less components than usual), mdf, plastic, some cables, a piezo electric, acrylic parts, leds and a speaker.
where will they come from?
All materials are very common and are easy to find in any place. The fablab inventory has many of this components.
how much will it cost?
All materials are no more expensive than $20 The value is more on the time of work, because it takes a longer time to mill the circuit weld components and assembly the product
what parts and systems will be made?
The electronic with an atmega 328 all the arduino, and an additional circuit that makes a POV as aesthetic of the shoe. The case to protect the electronics will be made using acrylic and laser cutter.
The shoe insole is also developed with a particular voronoi geometry that comes from the graphic of the distribution of weight of the person that will use the shoe
.
what processes will be used?
Welding electronics
Laser cutting
Some holes with a riveter
what tasks need to be completed?
Build the arduino and test how to make music
Conect the circuit with a piezo electric
Develop an arduino that could be adapted to a shoe
Make a “case” for the electronic part and the speaker. This case should be designed according to the aesthetic of the shoe.
Integrate all parts
Take photos!
what questions need to be answered?
Is really possible and functional that a shoe can make sounds with the change of pressure on the piezo?
The electronic adaptations that would be included in the shoe will be accepted in a successful way into the community of people of this style?
what is the schedule?
First I should search in internet and some books the information how to do music with arduino or which technical skills do I need. This will take around 2 weeks, then I start and finish the aesthetic and functional case of the product, the second part is easier for me because is my skill.
how will it be evaluated?
I think that the electronic and programmation of this shoe is very important because without this nothing works. It is also important to make a very good aesthetic because I m industrial designer and this part is much easier for me.
DISSEMINATION PLAN
This is a personal project ideated during the fab academy and developed in fab academy. This is the first prototype of my musical shoe using my skills. It has developed successfully the concept of the product that I wanted to create. But there is a lot of things that I would like to make better, like the tones and the volume.
In the next half of the yearI would like to develop a second prototype with more study of the sound and using another program maybe puredata and a Bluetooth accessory that will use the processor of an smartphone to make polifonic sounds, maybe I could make any musical instrument. The next video shows what I would like to have, the notes of piano could be made with the foot, a background music could be played all time.
t=4:39
After completing this exploration, I want to test it with a performance of a professional dancer. Maybe it will work and could be of a tendenz of wearable electronics. The manufacture of a product like this is really easy, so it could become a very interesting and popular product.
A product like this promotes the use of intelligent objets, the people would learn to “program” their own shoes to enjoy with new songs and try different steps.
Proyect Development
After exploring the assignments of Input and Output and all the experience of friends working arround this topics. I realized what is really possible to do, to explore and to build succesfully.
I wanted to explore the interactive design. One reference to this work is this video about "Fun Theory":
But i wanted to do it more as a weareble product. As i see, the people jump and walk in a slowly or quickly way trying to create a song. My idea was to use this interaction on the feets of the people, so they could dance according to the rythm and time of the music, because the dancer will create the music. I would like to test this product with common people for fun, but also would like to see the interaction with a professional dancer.
The idea or my dream idea is to generate part of the music with the steps, it would be necesary to include in the shoe a "electric-floor" sensor to detect the steps and send it to a processor that will play a sound as a musical instrument.
This conexion with a sensor and processor is the most difficult part for me , because the design of the shoe and the mechanical part is my toping and belong to my confort zone. So i center this first part of the proyect to solve the "no confort zone" part of the proyect.
As designer it is better for me to use an arduino, so i used the fabduino but modified, to have only the minimal components to have an arduino. This minimal arduino was made with the help of CristianCisneros and built on Networking assignment to replace a common arduino and to simplify a FabDuino. It helps me to understand what is inside the arduino and makes me able to create my own arduino.
Instead of the shoe it would be included an "electric floor" that detects the difference fo weight of the people when is beating or not. When the sensor Arduino detect the difference of the "electric floor" as Input, then will Play a note as Output.
This is the sensor that i will use.
This is how it works (it represents also a problem because it will send a lot of signals, i solved it with programation)
So i started exploring how to generate sounds on Arduino. I discover that unfortunately for having polifonic sounds it is required another driver, so I decided to start with 8bits sounds.
This secuence of videos show my exploration with an Arduino Mega, it could be also a Fabduino but for exploring I preffer not to damage my arduino because i had 5 and only 2 are now working (it could be a problem of use)
So after doing all this exploration i defined this last code for the shoe:
int piezoestado;
unsigned long cnt;
void tono_run(); //no es int ni float
unsigned char tonoState; // va hasta 255 (ahorra memoria)
//This is where i compose my song according to the attached file
int notas []={329,349,392,392,349,329,293,261,261,293,329,329,293,293};
void cambio();
int numero_nota;
/// here i m using a state machine, this is because what i need is an interruption of the note when another note start (this is the most difficult part of the proyect)
After this this i tested with the Xduino and this is the final result:
For my prototype thanks to the help of José de los Rios i could develop a smaller arduino for my wearable. This is a arduinoUNO using a resonator of 16mghz because and ceramic capacitors as throhold components (because i didn't found the smd components)
Then i added a case and a circuit of POV, thats why my arduino needs a lot of pins to control the pov that is part of the aesthetic of the shoe.
For the POV (Persistence of Vision Raytracer)i used the tutorial of
For making the shoe insole i decided to use a Image Sampler of grasshopper, the idea was to read the colors of a image and to generate a voronoi geometry in order to create more concentration of poligons according to more weight. The voronoi is a simple way of interpolation based on an euclidian distance. This is interpolation is used on the natural world for optimizing the structures, for example in the wings of insects.
The result of this i made it using the laser cutter
I included a piezo electric into the shoe
Integrated all parts the final result and the video of my shoe with sounds and pov working is this:
I included an image sampler using grasshopper for protecting the speaker this has the logo of fablab.
This is the test of prototype
All files for making this shoe are in the next link:
