Extreme Scissor Lift Shoes

This week’s construction was made up by the animations and in particular the children’s series ‘Inspector Gadget’. There are many times in our lives that we wish that there was a way to reach the highest points on our shelves and furniture at home in order to be able to do our housework properly. Therefore, we decided to experiment a creation that would be able to do that in our workshop.

This time, our aim was to make shoes that by the pressing of a button, they would be lifted high while pressing the same button again, they would be coming down. Even if the particular aim sounds easy to be achieved, the factors that will make this construction complicated are plenty.

First of all, the weight of the shoes is one of the main reasons that makes our procedure of creating them difficult as well as the weight of the person that will be lifted to the highest point wearing the shoes. Also, the mechanism that will move the construction and many other factors considered.

To start with, we made a base made of stainless steel. Then, we made two scissors consisted by 6 pieces each of 30cm. These two scissors were connected by tubes of 8mm thickness made of stainless steel and then they have been made by square tubes of 6mm thickness. Placing the screws of 6mm and the tubes, we made a common scissor of 12cm width. Its height when its parts are united is 12cm while when they are separated is 75cm. The whole construction was conglutinated with tig welder as the particular creation has many small pieces so the detail matters.

Regarding the inclination and the declination of the scissor we used pistons of compressed air taken by old, office chairs. We placed 2 pistons on each shoe to achieve our goal and lift the loads exerted successfully. Thus, while pressing the buttons the shoe is going up if the individual does not exert his whole weight on the one shoe. When the buttons are released, the piston does not move backwards so the shoe supports the whole load. After, when the user wants to go down, he exerts his whole weight on the one shoe pressing the buttons of the pistons so the shoe goes down and the same procedure is followed with the other pair as well.

On the top of our construction, we screwed two old shoes for security matters and these shoes have an iron, metal plate inside their sole that makes them very stable. We also used 5 springs in each shoe to empower the move of our scissors and to achieve a more stable and smooth movement.

After all these efforts, our experiment reached the final stage of trials. Wearing the particular shoes, we tried to be lifted using one foot each time which is the safest way in order to avoid instabilities. However, we also tried to make a saltation in order to open both shoes simultaneously. Although, this is a more dangerous way to lift up, it is the most impressive way to do so. Then, we tried to make some steps which is very hard to be achieved as the weight of the shoes is heavy enough. We also used them in multiple tasks with a great success such as to change the lamp, to polish some high points, to clean a tall car and to cut fruits from a tree so we enjoyed using our creation.

Our primary aim was achieved as we brought to life one of our childhood’s fantasies. To use it securely though, the shoes should be made by more stable materials like carbon fiber and having a bigger basis to support them.

However, we are glad to have these unusual shoes in our house’s decoration and maybe we will use them for a housework in case we don’t have any other alternatives. The same mechanism used for the shoes was also used for many other constructions such as the briefcase table. Finally, what we keep completing this experiment is the knowledge that we acquired as well as every great moment that we had making this construction!