Disco Kicks

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The Concept

This group were looking for a project that would be fun to make and fun to use. What a way to learn about new technologies! They eventually agreed on creating two pairs of "Dancing Shoes," which would have an array of Light Emitting Diodes (LED's) fitted around its base. These would be used to gauge the wearer's dancing skills! By having two pairs of shoes, competitions could be held between two dancers.

The Creation

The group decided that the way to achieve this would be to use different coloured LED's, fitted in various parts of the shoes to indicate each parameter being monitored. The main parameter would be the beat of the music, the rhythm of the dancer and the synchronisation of the two. This information was grouped and displayed as follows;

  • One row of LED's would flash according to the motion of the shoes. This was achieved by mounting micro-switches on the base of the shoe, which would detect when the shoe made or broke contact with the floor. This information would be fed to the microcontroller for processing
  • A miniature microphone was used to monitor for sound. It would produce an electrical pulse proportional to the beat or rhythm of music being played. This pulse caused another row of LED's to flash, and was also fed to the microcontroller for processing
  • The microcontroller was then programmed to monitor and record if the two pulses were received simultaneously. This would indicate that the dancer's movements were synchronised with the beat of the music. When this occurred, yet another row of LED's would flash
  • Finally, a row of LED's mounted in a vertical line at the rear of each shoe would be used to record the total amount of time the dancer was in synch with the rhythm of the music. These LED's would light up and remain on, one by one, moving up the "ladder" as more and more synchronised time was recorded. As soon as all of the LED's were on, a buzzer would sound to announce the winner.

This project was a lot of fun to design and build and who know, maybe Nike will approach the school and offer to buy this great invention!