gave birth to a new type of footwear this morning.

[Onyx_Ashanti]

gave birth to a new type of footwear this morning. I call it (surprise to exactly no one) an Exo-foot. a 100% 3d printed, modular, bio-mechanical foot interface. I am avoiding the word “shoe” for reasons that i will explain in my blog post on this build.

the only non-printed parts are two metal pins in the bottom hinge which i will sort out in future iterations. this is the second version, the first version was dont last summer and hurt the instant i stepped down on it. this one is much more comfortable so far, with only the achilles brace needing a bit of tweaking.
the design snaps together and uses the presence of the foot itself to not fall apart. the front region rotates so the system does not restrict the full biomechanical range of motion of the foot and because it is modular, and easily reprap-able (which is what took the most time to design) each piece can be iterated individually so, for instance, it currently looks like an open toe sandal but soon the toes will have their own elements. i just wanted the thing to exist.

I think it might be the first working 3d printed modular foot expression platform, but truthfully, if you put enough words together you can be the first of anything these days (first gum-chewing, city dweller with a tattoo of a flying hippo, etc…)

I am working on a proper blog post about the system but i wanted to share it and get feedback. maybe after i walk around in it for a bit more (so far so good…nothing has broken off yet and it doesnt kill my feet) i will open source it as well

[Rustin_L_Haase]

Looks great!! These actually look like they could be very comfortable. Considering my current sandals are falling apart, it would be fun to try making myself a couple of these. Nothing says Uber-Maker-Geek like a self made pair of footwear. I wonder if I could accessorize. lights, magnets, logos, sound effects, cooling fans … I’m looking forward to seeing the scad/stl/etc. files so I can give it a try.

[Onyx_Ashanti]

most definitely! i will post the files in the next week or so so soon as soon as i tweak a few things and write my notes and all of that stuff. but yeah, a complete platform for the feet to do all kinds of stuff

[Nick_Parker]

@Jon_Schull

This reminds me of a thought I had for non-hand stuff e-NABLE could work on. Ankle control issues for stroke victims seems like something we could help with.

[Onyx_Ashanti]

ive found that once i can print it, it evolves in extremely interesting ways. mechanically linked nylon based modular footware (oh shit…“footware”. i’m keeping that one ) will allow me to think iteratively about what my feet do, how they do it and what data they express so ankle control should be very doable. i will post the files in the coming week.

[Tim_Youngblood]

I would recommend you study the circulatory system of the foot. I can see from your design that there may be some issues with that. Bridging veins and avoiding pressure points in key soft tissue areas will improve the chances of comfort beyond what would be possible otherwise.

[Onyx_Ashanti]

definitely. now that im wearing the thing, im getting much better feedback as to what should be what. so much so that i think the revisions made to the (at present unprinted) right foot will make it markedly different just from 3 days of walking around in this thing. so far though, it is 90%cool. no weird pinching or numbness. iteration will be ongoing. cheers!

[Nils_Hitze]

amazing Job. Will you show it at the Berlin Maker Faire in October?