![]() ![]() Two adidas runners were identified as experts in this run and provided both motion capture and ongoing feedback to support development. The first-of-its-kind concept shoe was created to provide a new experience of short-distance training runs at 5m/s or faster. STRUNG is not knitting and it’s not weaving: it hasn’t existed before. Getting that base STRUNG textile to work and function as we want is and will continue be a challenge. Our material tech challenge was very clear - we wanted to make something where we could place the yarns in any direction, to go beyond what existing textile creation methods are capable of. After two years of internal adidas development, we decided to accelerate th is process by collaborat ing with long-term design partner, Kram/Weisshaar – a pioneering digital design studio. We started to think about how we could make a machine that would do this type of thread “ winding ” by hand, how to integrate athlete data, and how to build software to create, simulate, analyse and test STRUNG upper s. Initially it was really about building things by hand, making prototypes and allowing the project to evolve naturally instead of trying to rush things early on. It doesn’t move and contract in uniform ways so it’s a really challenging problem to solve… how do you build a tool for such a unique system? We are learning with every stage of development that the foot moves differently with each intervention of footwear that is placed on it. It’s important to remember that the foot is this wildly complex asymmetrical form. This job is all about exploring and pushing boundaries – yes, you make mistakes but it’s all about learning and using them to progress. ![]() This allowed upper designs to be sent on to each machine remotely, meaning refinement work was ongoing around the clock. The travel restrictions that came with the pandemic brought its own challenges, but we were able to navigate some of these and maximise our efficiency due to having connected STRUNG robots on three continents. The process of creating and refining new STRUNG software, hardware and prototypes led to increased buy-in and more and more people joining as development became more complex. We wanted to see how we as a team could interact with robotics and athlete data in a meaningful, creative way. We’re writing the script as we go, so t here’s a lot of trial and error, although our vision i s always clear. The fact that there i s no real precedent means the journey is both exciting and frustrating. With other technologies, there are other people doing similar things, but not with this. But it was clear from the start that there was no script. T he original inspiration came from architecture and some interesting experiments where we saw robotics used in a creative way to build fibre structures. The inside story of STRUNG as told b y the team behind it.īy Fionn Corcoran-Tadd, Benjamin Kleiman, Ian Hennebery & Clemens DyckmansĪs is the case with many innovation journeys, it started in a basement with a small but dedicated group of the adidas Future team. ![]()
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