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Student Creates World's Fastest Shoe With a Printer
An anonymous reader writes "Engineer and designer Luc Fusaro from the Royal College of Art in London has developed a prototype running shoe that can be uniquely sculpted to any athlete's foot. It's as light as a feather too, weighing in at 96 grams. The prototype is aptly named, Designed to Win, and is 3D printed out of nylon polyamide powder, which is a very strong and lightweight material. The manufacturing process uses selective laser sintering (SLS), which fuses powdered materials with a CO2 laser to create an object. This process means 3D scans can be taken of the runner's foot so as to ensure the shoe matches the shape perfectly. Fusaro can also change the stiffness of the soles according to the athlete's physical abilities. The shoe can improve performance by 3.5%, meaning a 10 second 100-meter sprinter could see his time drop by 0.35 seconds, which is a huge time saving relatively speaking. Imagine if Usain Bolt put a pair of these running shoes on."
Usain Bolt could put on quite a shoe with those running shows.
I wouldn't want to print this at home though... needs a specialty place... with a fume hood.
Why would I want a shoe with a printer?
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
From the headline, I thought he'd invented a shoe that actually printed. My dream remains alive!
...I can beat that by quite some time with a bicycle, or a car, or a jet plane.
Sprints which depend on the choice of shoe aren't really comparing the abilities of the athletes, are they? And no marks for saying, "They're testing the ability of the athletes to choose their shoes/performance-enhancing drug/etc.!"
I recently bought a pair of those glove-like shoes (where each toe gets its own slot) that doesn't fit my feet very well. It got me to wondering if someone could use a 3D printer and some orthogonal pictures of my feet to make a better-fitting pair. The article suggests it's certainly possible, but doesn't give any sense of cost.
3D printing is neat and all, and congrats on a new use for the tech. But can we please put these one some people and run them around before saying bullshit like "Apparently the shoe can improve performance by 3.5%"?
The article is essentially just the summary. The article links to another article, which is essentially just the summary too, although it mentions that the shoe has been tested on some world class athletes. No mention of the testing methodology though, for such a bold claim.
Everyone knows it's supposed to be a shoe *phone*, not a shoe printer.
Does make one wonder where the line needs to be drawn for enhancing equipment in competition like this?
I thought the original olympiads performed entirely naked? Even little things like swim caps can make quite a difference. Unless all the athletes have access to the same tech, it's not really fair?
And even if they all get it, then all it means is everyone improves by the same amount, and nobody really gets anywhere (relatively) besides breaking a few more world records.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Screw Usain Bolt, make a fancy custom shoe for Oscar Pistorius!
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
MEEPT!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
shower shoes with spikes are the track shoe of the future?
>a 10 second 100-meter sprinter could see his time drop by 0.35 seconds
If it can increase performance by 100%, he can run it in zero seconds.
Math confuses Slashdot editors.
ahem, I don't mean to be pedantic but you've got a semantic error in your summary.
Maxwell Smart had a shoe with a phone. An unlisted shoe at that
As does anyone who uses the Nike + iPod sensor.
... and here I thought I'd be able to jog and leave behind "JOE RAN HERE!"
Imagine if Usain Bolt put a pair of these running shows on.
Have years of spell-check trained us all to type perfectly spelt, but completely incorrect words? Or did we always do this? I catch myself doing it all the time. I find it amazing that your brain can think up and type a completely unrelated word, but have enough sense to spell it correctly. And to read the sentence as you type it, somehow seeing the intended word. (I'm also nervously interesting in which words I inevitably screw up in this post.)
[lol, yeah I saw that in preview, but left it in.]
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
"The shoe can improve performance by 3.5%, meaning a 10 second 100-meter sprinter could see his time drop by 0.35 seconds, which is a huge time saving relatively speaking. Imagine if Usain Bolt put a pair of these running shows on."
soooo... technically it could be a huger time savings if I put them on? ...or even huger-er if we put them on gimps.
gay, but you run fast, so I guess...
Shaving 0.35 seconds can get you from 5th place to 1st. I've seen it happen. Snap time of the leg advancing is critical in the first 2 seconds. If this shoe can do it, and last the race. I think I'll get a 3D printer too!
At my work, the managers are required to wear the workgroup versions of the shoes, so they can more directly monitor printing costs for their departments. HP is making new inks for them that also have anti-fungals. Last year they added Febreze to the ink, too.
Oh, wait. You mean that the printer makes the shoes? Hmm...
They're called feet. Still can't figure out the sigma behind using them without the addition of all these rubber dongles. Guess that's just the way it has been done for a hundred years.
Great Intellect...
http://xkcd.com/1065/
Guaranteed Gold Medal at the Olympics?
But it has those creepy 5 finger toes...
Yeah, I'll have to think about that.
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
... about improvements for top athletes and elitists. I want my own pair of *perfectly* moulded vibram five fingers! That is an idea I'd want to get behind :D
Hmm, the humour and sarcasm seem to have been be lost on you.
Let me just turn on this scanner here....
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
...could create the world's fastest printer, with a shoe!
If he were able to solve important problems, I would be impressed, runnig faster? Not important when there are thousands of people starving to death.
The biggest breakthrough I see in this is the lessened need for shoes to be manufactured (to an extent) by hand. If Nike hops on the bandwagon, they could not only drive the push for better mass-production versions of rapid-prototyping machines like SLS printers, but also reduce the usage of child laborers. Next up: soccer balls.
Lusers, lusers, everywhere and not a LART in sight.
But maybe I'm wrong. IANAHS (I Am Not An History Scholar).
You're obviously not an english major, either! ;)
If Justin Gatlin put a pair of these shoes on, a non-Jamaican would hold the world 100m record (If they never found out he was on drugs).
scan it, print it, perfect fit inside, customizable (colors, textures, etc) outside.
You read it here first ...
http://www.euronews.com/2012/07/02/shoe-designed-to-win/
Sprinting shoes are basically just a slipper with a spike plate in the toe.
A light road racing shoe can improve 5K, 10K and marathon times, though, compared to a heavy jogging shoe.
But can we please put these one some people and run them around before saying bullshit like "Apparently the shoe can improve performance by 3.5%"?
But... but... the designer says it's world's fastest shoe, you need more proof than that?
/. titled "Student Creates World's Fastest Shoe" is about a student who says he created the world's fastest shoe with no independent studies, no research backing up the claim, no.... nothing? Really?? Wow. Fail. Seriously? Ok, I invented the worlds fastest.... keyboard. Ya. You heard me. Increases typing speed by 3.5%, resulting in almost an entire hour saved every 40 hr work week. Proof? I said it, and tested it, with office workers that type a lot, isn't that proof enough? Hold on, I'll send out a press release and get it on /., that should be enough proof....
" French-born engineer and designer Luc Fusaro... tested the shoe on several competitive sprinters... it can improve performance by as much as 3.5%"
Gee, I mean, if that's what the press release says, then who am I to question it, right? Clearly that's been independently confirmed by top scientist and numerous studies have been done... oh wait, they haven't been? You mean, article on
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Next up:
"Contributor creates world's stupidest headline with a keyboard"
I can see this being a huge win (no pin intended) for people like me who have bizarre feet!
I run roughly 50 - 60km a week and always struggle to find a pair of shoes that cater for my wide retarded feet and pinky toes which stick out the wrong way. (sadly the latter is hereditary)
Every year I do the 2000km change over of shoes and it's always a bloody headache buying new shoes.
There. Fixed that for /.
What part of `yes no` don't you understand?
How can you speak of a fair sport if all this tech is aiding the sportsperson.. I say let's get back to the original olympics, let them run barefeet and naked, and not use any technology during the race..
Why not just have the athlete dip his foot into a thin polymer bath for the outer, then a harder compound to coat the sole (with drying time in between, of course) to make the shoe? Seems faster, and would provide a much better fit than a 3D scan. Just dip, dry, race and peel off when done. It's not like the shoe has to last a long time, especially for a sprinting shoe.
What a peculiar example. I never thought of Usain Bolt as someone who was that bothered about what he wore on his feet. The man ran an Olympic-record-destroying time with his left shoelace untied after all...
It has to be an even BIGGER bird.
3.5% better than bare feet? Iron shackles? The next best running shoes that for top tier runners are probably custom made and tailored? I smell FUD.
But maybe I'm wrong. IANAHS (I Am Not An History Scholar).
You're obviously not an e nglish major, either! ;)
And, neither are you, so please STFU, and just get over it. If by chance I'm mistaken about your major, please request a refund, and study up on capitalization.
Just another day in Paradise
Is this the beginning of the end of traditional manufacturing? I wonder what the cost savings are of printing objects instead of manually assembling them on a production line. It seems as though printing has the potential to be much more efficient than traditional methods. Here's wishing for Star Treks future of instant item manufacturing.
"Everyone knows that vi vi vi is the number of the beast" -- Richard Stallman