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Classify This Robot-Woven Sneaker With 3D-Printed Soles as 'Footware'

📅 Date:

✍️ Author: Brian T. Horowitz

🏭 Vertical: Apparel, Machinery

🏢 Organizations: Adidas, IEEE, MIT, KRAM-WEISSHAAR


For athletes trying to run fast, the proper shoe can be essential to achieving peak performance. For athletes trying to run as fast as humanly possible, a runner’s shoe can also become a work of individually customized engineering.

This is why Adidas has married 3D printing with robotic automation in a mass-market footwear project it’s called Futurecraft.Strung, expected to be available for purchase as soon as later this year. Using a customized, 3D-printed sole, a Futurecraft.Strung manufacturing robot can place some 2,000 threads from up to 10 different sneaker yarns in one upper section of the shoe.

Read more at IEEE Spectrum