Revised our fall poster at the workshop on Monday and submitted it on Tuesday. Right after the submission, we have a meeting with the sponsor.
Following are a few points that he wants us to be aware of while we continue working on our designs:
The device needs to be about an inch above the bottom of the shoe when it’s not in use. We all need some kind of mechanism to bring it down before flipping it over.
The device can’t be trapped by the pants since people usually wear long pants in snow.
The “spikes” don’t need to be sharp. They can be similar to the picture of existing product he sent us.
Don’t need a lot of “spikes” for friction force.
The device is better to be at the heel instead of the front, so either flipping from back or from two sides would work.
The device should be smaller for some of our prototype.
The look of the product is also a concern for marketing most of our prototypes need to improve on this.
Have something to try on as soon as possible since his area is already in the season of using this product.
Since this week is short and we focus on the fall poster for a few days, we didn’t have much progress on the prototype or design for this week. However, we all get some new ideas on the design after the inspiring meeting with the sponsor and last week with the advisor. I believe that we are all ready to put them into our further design and prototype.

Chih-I Cheng, Mechanical Aid for Traction on Ice