Summary of Old Sole
Old Sole is a conceptual pair of shoes and a walker that links youth and elderly mobility: the walker records slow step data and the shoes limit a young wearer's speed, vibrating and lighting when the young person outpaces the walker to force awareness of aging and mobility limits. It’s a speculative design to provoke reflection rather than a practical product, using sensors, a server for step counts, and feedback on the shoes.
Parts used in the Old Sole:
- Shoes with FSR (force sensitive resistor) sensors
- Walker with FSR sensor
- Vibration motor in the shoes
- LED lights in the shoes
- Microcontroller(s) for shoes and walker
- Wireless communication module(s) for POST/GET requests
- Server/DataStream on data.sparkfun.com for step count storage
- Power source/batteries
Old Sole interrupts normal youthful days to force young people to interact with their environment in a different way. If the young shoe-wearer takes significantly more steps than the elderly individual with the walker, the shoes light up and vibrate uncomfortably, reminding the young person that somebody on the other end of the old sole is not able to keep up.
Limiting the speed of the shoes to the speed of the walker forces the young person to interact with whatever’s there, as someone with mobility issues may have to.
This is not meant to be a user-centered product, or particularly useful in any way. Rather, it is meant to make us aware of age, aging and dying as we walk. One day, the wearer of the shoe will be with the walker and will slow down the shoe walker, bringing the Old Sole full circle.
Design Process
We spent a lot of time brainstorming, trying to build and jump off ideas. Our original idea was to tackle a targeted user group that usually does not benefit from technology. We thought about building attachments for walking sticks for the blind, wheelchairs, and walkers.
Eventually, we settled on the idea of the walker. Original ideas around the walker were dark — we were in the design noir mindset. We considered building motors that inhibited walker movement based on bad signs from the world — falling stock prices, bad weather, etc. Then, we went on a tangent and explored ideas around a social walker; we imagined a series of walkers networked together so the elderly could meet up or navigate. Ultimately, we combined these two ideas, marrying the social aspect with the design noir to come up with the Old Sole.
System Architecture
The walker records the average amount of fluctuations in the FSR over an interval, as does the shoe with its own FSR. The walker sends POST requests to a server, which here is a DataStream on data.sparkfun.com, with how many steps it has taken in the last time period. The shoes then read the step counts from the server via GET requests.
Read More: Old Sole
- What is Old Sole?
Old Sole is a conceptual system linking a walker and shoes so the shoes limit a young wearer's speed to match the walker and provide vibrotactile and visual feedback when the wearer outpaces the walker. - How does the walker communicate step data?
The walker records step counts via its FSR and sends POST requests to a server DataStream on data.sparkfun.com with the steps taken in each time period. - How do the shoes get the walker's step count?
The shoes read the step counts from the server via GET requests to the DataStream. - What sensors are used to detect steps?
Force sensitive resistors (FSRs) are used in both the walker and the shoes to record fluctuations and count steps. - What feedback do the shoes provide when the young person walks too fast?
The shoes light up and vibrate uncomfortably to remind the young wearer they are outpacing the walker. - Does Old Sole aim to be a practical user-centered product?
No; the project is not intended as a practical user-centered product but as a provocation to raise awareness of age and mobility while walking. - What design ideas led to Old Sole?
The team brainstormed attachments for walking aids, social networked walkers, and design noir concepts that inhibited movement based on external signals, ultimately combining social and design noir ideas into Old Sole. - How does Old Sole limit the shoes' speed?
The system forces the shoes to limit speed by comparing shoe FSR step data with the walker step counts retrieved from the server and activating feedback when the young wearer takes significantly more steps.
