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These custom Chucks are smokin’ hot kicks

Arduino TeamFebruary 20th, 2024

Once you get bored with the shoes on the shelves at Payless, you can dive into the fascinating world of custom sneakers. Converse Chuck Taylors are probably the most popular canvas for shoe customizers, as they offer plenty of room for paint and jewel bedazzling. But creative technologist Tigris Li took it to a whole other level with her Chuck 70s Smoke Shoes that blow clouds as the wearer walks.

Each shoe has an apparatus that looks like it was cobbled together by a mad scientist trying invent their way into dunking. When the wearer puts pressure down on the sole, that apparatus will puff out a cloud of smoke. Those soles are actually custom, too. Li 3D-printed them in TPU to give the shoes a cool, angular look. They also contain the force sensors that trigger the smoke production.

An Arduino Nano ESP32 board in each shoe monitors the force sensor in the sole. When the signal surpasses a set threshold, the Arduino activates a relay that allows power to flow through a heating coil. That coil sits in smoke machine fluid that comes from a tiny flask attached to the shoe. With power flowing, the coil burns the fluid and that expands to create the smoke.

We can only assume that we’ll see Jay-Z wearing these at his next appearance at the Grammy Awards.

Boards:Nano ESP32
Categories:Arduino