#HTE

Reader Submitted: Ankle Stabilizing High Tops

Ankle braces are often very uncomfortable to put on and wear underneath your shoes (not to mention an eye sore). Why can’t athletic shoes have ankle braces built into their design to eliminate the need for separate supports? I set out to address this problem.

During the research stage, I spoke with Joseph Crisco, a Brown University professor of Orthopedics and Engineering Research who also has expertise in musculoskeletal biomechanics, to discuss the legitimacy of my idea. From there, I researched lower body anatomy, learning the nuances of a sprain verses a strain or break, and conducted a user survey at my club basketball team’s tryouts. From that survey, 73% of the players said they had suffered an ankle injury at some point while playing, 100% of those players wore an ankle brace after the injury was sustained (McDavid was the most common brand used), and 50% of those players said they still wear braces today.

Next, I began sketching—making paper templates and muslin models, designing in CAD, creating a velcro strap that will wrap around the ankle to mimic the function of figure-eight straps seen on medical braces, and finally moved on to the final iteration.

Shoe’s webbing strap wraps around the shoes externally, just like an ankle brace strap or medical tape wraps. Early process images, from sketching, to last tape templates to upper and lining paper templates. Ideation in Rhinoceros, visualizing how the shoe design could potentially look. The soles were casted in silicon rubber, poured into stacked sheets of laser cut acrylic that were held together by reference pins. View the full project here
http://www.core77.com/projects/51478/Ankle-Stabilizing-High-Tops