The projects in the Wormhole Wearables studio were all inspired by planets from the book "Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy." The planet we focused on was Bethselamin, a planet that draws countless tourists due to its fabulous beauty. However, because of the heavy tourism, Bethselamin residents are facing an erosion problem and crowds that are difficult to navigate. These are the problems we decided to address. 

    On the first day we brainstormed ways to stop erosion. We focused on ways to minimize the surface area of a shoe/boot. We came up with the idea of making a boot that touched less area than your foot does. We were particularly intrigued by the possibility of having the "heel" be nothing more than a point.  Later, we addressed the idea of the boot being able to change height. Our brainstorms produced many ideas but the one we landed on was turning the boot into a screw. We designed a cylinder with a track spiraling around the outside. Three small spikes to connect to different spots on the cylinder (and spin up and down the track) and are connected at the bottom to a prism—this is what the user stands on. In-between the rail there is a neuron pattern that extend from the rail. The concept behind the pattern is that on Betheslamin, if someone wearing this boot wanted to go up or down, their thoughts would transfer to the boot and it would automatically raise up and down.  

In the book Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy there is a planet Bethselamin which is so beautiful that it receives over 10 billion visitors per year. Along with great profits this many people in one place causes a some problems. The one Harper and I decided to take on was erosion.

      We started by trying to find a way to make a shoe that touches less are of the ground than a regular foot would. We went through multiple from using a cone shape to using using spike like stilts. We decided to a screw like element to the boot so that the user could turn the spikes up or down to make themselves taller or shorter so that they could see over the crowds of people. Using the program Rhino Harper and I designed a model of the shoe that we could 3d print. We also designed spikes that we cut out of white acrylic that attached to some tracks on the cylinder. We also made a separate piece that spike all connected to to form one big one.