DOMINIC WILCOXGPS SHOES

NO PLACE LIKE HOME

MADE BY: Mengying Xu

LEAD YOU HOME

DOMINIC WILCOX HAS CREATED A FULLY

FUNCTIONAL PROTOTYPE PAIR OF SHOES THAT WILL

GUIDE THE WEARER TO ANY DESTINATION, NO MATTER WHERE THEY ARE IN THE

WORLD........

GPS-Enabled “Smart” Shoes Keep Tabs onAlzheimer’s Patients

DOMINIC WELCOX

When Dorothy clicked the heels of her ruby slippers—or silver, if you’re going by the book—she was magically transported home. When you click the heels of Dominic Wilcox‘s bespoke No Place Like Home shoes, they show you the way home. These handmade leather shoes are outfitted with GPS technology to point you in the right direction and show how much progress

you’ve made. This artistic endeav-or is a fun combination of wearable technology and beautiful crafts-manship, all to help you correctly navigate to anywhere in the world.

THE TECHNOLOGY GPS SYSTEMWilcox was commissioned by the Global Footprint project in Northamptonshire to design and create a pair of shoes. Thinking about Dorothy’s famous shoes in the Wizard of Oz that were able to take her back home, Wilcox also wanted to make a pair of shoes that could lead you anywhere you want. He named the shoes, No Place Like Home, and partnered with interactive

arts and technology expert Becky Stewart and local Northampton shoe maker Stamp Shoes to make the custom shoes.

The two shoes work together to provide information on direction and distance to the wearer. The left shoe is outfitted with GPS technology and a ring of LED lights on the toe, which show which di-rection the wearer should move. Then the right shoe communicated with the left wirelessly and shows your progress through LEDs also on the toe. Bright red tabs on the heel operate as the antenna to connect with the satellites. To op-erate the shoes, the wearer simply types in the address via a com-puter portal and uploads the loca-tion to the shoes through a USB connection. After putting the shoes on, the wearer clicks their heels to-gether to turn on the shoes, which will start navigating you to your final destination.

Just like Dorothy’s shoes, the No Place Like Home shoes will get you to where you need to be. Although

this was just a fun project inte-grating technology and bespoke fashion, this sort of concept could have real world applications for those with who suffer from terrible navigation skills.

The left shoe points in the de-sired direction, the right shoe

acts as a progress bar.

Connect the shoes to the lap-top via USB. Plot on the map

where you wish to go and press Upload to Shoe.

DOMINICWILCOXGPS SHOES