This is a prototype shoe (v2) I helped design and build. It was designed for children suffering from habitual toe-walking, which can lead shortened Achilles tendon. Since the behavior is often due to an unconscious habit, it’s function make patient’s aware of when they’re engaging in toe-walking.

The idea here was to place force sensors on the toe and heel, which an onboard computer would process. If the computer processes the gait-data and recognizes it as toe-walking, then it activates a small vibrational motor within the shoe to train the patient out of the behavior.

For this project, I had to learn several things (thanks to my patient coworker and boss): (1) reading electrical schematics (2) building and designing electrical components (3) programming microprocessors (4) prototyping circuit designs on breadboards (5) LabView (6) MatLab (7) AutoDesk 360