For our one week Independent Project we decided to improve upon the cycling exoskeleton we had worked on in the 3rd session. As we have explained in our original portfolio, our product is a 3D-printed exoskeleton that fits around a running shoe. For our independent project we honed in on improving our exoskeleton in a few different ways: making the shoe lighter, giving the shoe a better fit, and creating a more aesthetically pleasing shoe. Also, we consulted with a local bike shop and entry level cyclists to receive their input on our shoe.  

When meeting with cyclists, and shop owners they gave us a small list of things that could be approved upon:

1. We could emit certain parts from the sole 
   • ​​We ended up using a grasshopper called Voroni to excise parts of the sole in an intricate pattern. 
2. The bike clip we had attached on the bottom was backwards
   • This was an easy fix to correct because all we had to do was super glue the clip the other way. The heel of the shoe was too hig
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3. We rectified this by going back to the T-Splines file to lower the heel
   • The toe overhang was too large
4. A simple T-Splines edit helped 
   • Airflow needed to be increased 
5. We increased air flow by extruding multiple arrays of circles in the heel, and also with Voronoi; the grasshopper function.
   • The back extrusions for velcro could be rotated so that it would be easier to use the heel strap.
6. Learning new grasshopper functions in just one week was very hard, but; thankfully, there were many Voronoi tutorials online to help us out.