ABSTRACT | 2016

Science Report

Efficiency of sole changing shoes

Sole Changers

Introduction:

How much money do you spend on shoes every year? How many shoes do you own? Around the world people spend $48 billion dollars on footwear a year and $20 billion in the U.S. Every year the amount of money spent on footwear rises.(1) In the United States the average person spends $21 a month on shoes. Women own an average own 21 pairs of shoes. (2) The issue with the amount of money spent on shoes is people are spending more money than the need to on many pairs of shoe. Our proposed project is to innovate the modern day sneaker into a multipurpose shoe with interchangeable soles. This would allow a pair of shoes to last much longer, be more cost efficient, and be more flexible for more recreational activities. Imagine playing baseball, football, bowling, running on a track without having to change your entire shoe. With our product people will be able to switch between many different soles for their shoe including: cleats, running, bowling, walking, and many more. They will only need one shoe for all of these activities.

Methodology:

Problem Statement: Would having one shoe with a variety of interchangeable soles for multiple uses (running shoes, cleats, walking shoes etc. ) be more economical and save people more money than buying a variety of different shoes?

Empathy By Design: Empathy by design is creating a product to solve a problem that the creator has personally experienced to help other people who face the same problem. Our product follows the theme of empathy by design because we know what it feels like to buy multiple pairs of shoes for different activities, and we know that people like saving money and our product helps them do this.

Hypothesis: If consumers had one pair of shoes with a variety of interchangeable soles for multiple uses (running shoes, cleats, walking shoes etc. ), then it would save consumers money and be more useful than buying multiple pairs of shoes with only one use per shoe.

IV: Type of shoe

DV: Amount of mass that the shoe lost

Constants: the sandpaper used for testing, the amount of time for each trial, the scale used for measuring the mass of the shoes being tested

Procedure:

1. We did a survey on students from East Haven High School to see if there was any interest in a shoe that has an interchangeable sole. Also, to see if students would participate in our experiment.

2. Record mass of shoe being tested in grams

3. Subjects will put on one of the shoes that is being tested for durability and stand on sandpaper that is taped to the floor and rub back and forth for 10 min.

4. Record mass of shoe tested in grams

5. Repeat steps 2 through 4 on all shoes for 5 days.

Results:

Abstract:

We found that our research and experiment have shown that 21.73% of East Haven High School Students mainly wear sneakers, 5.3% of the students wear boots/dress shoes, 3.71% of the students wear slippers and 1.06% of the students wear cleats/running shoes/bowling shoes. 6.89% of East Haven High School students that play sports require running shoes, 3.45% require cleats, 0.53% require bowling shoes, 8.48 require sneakers, 2.65% require marching shoes and 3.45% require other shoes such as ice skates, tennis shoes, ballet flats and tap shoes. 18.55% of East Haven High School students said yes they are willing to save money by changing the soles of their shoes then 11.13% said no they are not willing to save money. 23.85% of the students have thrown away 1-5 pairs a shoes in the past year, 2.65% of the students threw away 5-10 pairs of shoes in the past year and 2.12% of the students threw away 10-20 pair of shoes in the past year. During the experiment we tested the durability of the shoe to see how much weight would be lost when rubbing the shoe on sandpaper for 10 minutes at a time. Some of the shoes that we experimented on were Flat Sole High Top, Arch Sole Running Shoe, and Arch Sole Basketball Shoes. The data we found from the experiment showed the shoes lost 1.5g to 8.3g after testing for 10 minutes for 5 days .

Discussion:

After we did the survey, some of the students of East Haven High School were willing to be in the experiment to test the shoes and would want a Sole Changer sole. The data for the project means that when you walk for long periods of time the sole will wear out. Therefore the sole would need to be replaced more often. For future development we will have our business grow by producing more soles. We want to expand the kinds of soles we have so more people would be willing to buy our product. Our main goal for the future is to have to most inexpensive shoe of good quality so that all people can afford to do multiple activities while only having to purchase one shoe. The data proves that the soles of shoes wear down and that our solution of an interchangeable sole will be effective and helpful.

Bibliography

U.S Census Bureau. "Footwear Industry Statistics." Statistic Brain. Statistic Brain Research Institute, 13 Apr. 2015. Web. 20 Apr. 2016. <http://www.statisticbrain.com/footwear-industry-statistics>

Allen, Gavin. "Women Own 21 Pairs of Shoes on Average."Www.Mirror.co.uk. Mirror, 8 Oct. 2014. Web. 19 Apr. 2016. <http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/women-21-pairs-shoes-average-4400118>