Check us out on talk2myShirt.com and the Make Magazine blog.

We’re super excited — The New York Academy of Science’s “Science & the City” did a podcast and slide show about Project Walkway. Click here to look & listen.

The Project Walkway shoes are on display at the ZER01 exhibition, and we’ll be doing a shoe hacking workshop at the Tech Museum of Innovation this weekend… please come by!

DIY Shoe Hacks and Audible Alarm Workshop with Norene Leddy, Andrew Milmoe and Melissa Gira

Where: On Chavez Plaza

Start time: 4pm

Length of workshop: 2 hours

Number of participants: 10 (if participants work in pairs, we can accommodate 20)

Recommended that participants under the age of 12 years, work with an adult

In a two-hour workshop, Norene Leddy and The Aphrodite Project Team will present a brief history of shoes, along with a description of Project Walkway (GYV micro-grant project with Eyebeam in NYC) and demos of shoe-hacks. We will show 2-3 versions of hacked sandals, and explain in detail how they were created. This will include ways to make casings for electronics, secret compartments, etc. A shoe hacking article, written by the team and published in Make magazine, with detailed instructions for doing more elaborate shoe hacks will also be handed out. Participants will then build their own personal audible alarm systems to use when physically threatened. The same alarm is embedded in the demo shoes, and can also be used in handbags, jackets and other clothing. This DIY alarm system uses inexpensive components and is easy to assemble (no soldering or special skills required).

Images of the audible alarm kits:
http://www.theaphroditeproject.tv/DIY/

Project Walkway 2008 PSA Part 1:
Intro, interviews with Yvonne and Wandy

Project Walkway 2008 PSA Part 2:
Interviews with Meisha and Blanca

Project Walkway 2008 PSA Part 3:
Runway show, project overview with Norene

On the final day of Project Walkway the girls had interviewed each other while Norene recorded on video for the Project Walkway DVD. These interviews would be part of the Zer01 exhibition. We did practice walks on the red carpet runway. We stood in the conference room to do some last minute shoe repair making sure that they were ok so that there were no malfunctions on the runway. One of the engineers, Jess, painted the girls toe nails blue. While waiting for the show to start the girls were nervous but also very excited. All the participants that walked the runway had to wait in the R&D Lab until their names were called. They all did very well and had personality while walking which made the crowd smile and applaud. Their shoes were all unique in their way which attracted many interviews from the people that were watching. The girls were interviewed for the Sci-Fi channel and for a pod cast by the New York Academy of Sciences. Once they are online we will post them on the blog to keep you updated. Now the shoes are going to the exhibition in San Jose for the Zer01 new media art festival. In the fall we will be going to Bayard Rustin Academy for Art and Music, where we will be presenting the shoes to the students. Keep checking our website to see what we’re up to.

The show last night was fabulous, check out our photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/projectwalkway/.

Please join us for the Project Walkway runway show at Eyebeam.

Thursday May 22, Runway show at 7pm
Eyebeam Art + Technology Center
540 W. 21st St.
NYC

In addition to the runway show, there will be a book launch party for Sabine Seymour’s “Fashionable Technology: The Intersection of Design, Fashion, Science and Technology” and an exhibition of wearable technology artworks.

Reception + book signing 6PM | Runway show 7PM | Talk 7:30PM

click here for more info

Today we had an extra session of finishing work. More leather and decorations were added to the exteriors, including a metrocard pocket, red leather diamonds, and lots of fake fur. We also decided to leave one shoe with the electronics exposed. Finally we are ready for the runway, the shoes look great!
-Norene

Today Wandy and I did some extra work on her shoes, fixing the alarm and making some diamond-shaped holes in the leather for the LEDs. We also did some work on Adrianna’s shoes with red piping.
-Norene

Today in our session was the most complex work that we have done. The tools that we used today were plenty. There was mylar paper to make patterns and piping to make the lining of the leather look pretty. Of course there was leather, shoe glue to stick the leather to the shoes, and black shoe polish to change the the original color of the shoe from blue to black.