Katie b's Senior Project Blog
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Project Title: Pointe Perfection: A New Era of Ballet Shoes BASIS Advisor: Jessica Buckley Internship Location: NAU Dance Academy Onsite Mentor: Andrew Needhammer |
Project Abstract
The ethereal beauty of pointe shoes often overshadows the tedious process endured by ballet dancers. The common construction of the shoe consists of fabric, paper, and cardboard hardened by glue. As this glue re-dampens with moisture and sweat from a dancer’s foot, the shoe softens. Without proper drying time, the shoe will not harden back to its original stature which over time will impede a dancer’s foot health and ability. I am determined to find a better way. For my research, I will be answering the question of “how can we make a better pointe shoe?” I am excited to explore options like recycled plastic and synthetic materials to increase the shoes’ lifespan and sustainability. I will study the advantages and disadvantages of different materials to come up with the best solution for pointe shoe strength, durability, and sustainability. Going into my internship, I am looking forward to working alongside ballet instructors and dancers to learn more about the desirable and undesirable components of a pointe shoe and how I can improve them. I will experiment with multiple different materials, testing them first with digital simulations and then in actual pointe shoe prototypes. I hope to be able to swap out the old pointe shoe parts with the new 3D-printed ones I have created. From there, I will be able to test the shoes and collect data on how strong and long-lasting each material is compared to original shoes. After I have determined the best material, I will begin sewing and constructing my final product from scratch: a prototype of a pointe shoe.
The Grand Finale: A Conclusion To My Project
Thank you so much to everyone who attended the senior project presentations at the end of last week. I know I enjoyed having such a supportive audience, and I’m sure everyone else did as well. For my final blog post, I wanted to share the final steps that I took to complete a working pointe... Read More
Week 10: The Last Leap
As my project is starting to wrap up, there are some final steps I have made. After receiving my 3D-printed toe box, it turned out super cool! It looks like an actual pointe shoe. However, of course it was barely too small to where I could not fit my foot inside to properly test it... Read More
Week 9: Relevé All Day
This week has been a lot of testing, and frankly my feet are getting very tired! :-? I was able to get a lot done though, so this post is a long one! If you remember from last week's post, I wanted to adjust the angle of the pre-arched shank after briefly testing one of... Read More
Week 8: Plastic Pirouettes
I am so excited to share that I have made a prototype! Over the weekend, two very kind guys at Gore agreed to help print out my shank design using their personal 3D printers. After speaking with them and running some digital tests, we decided that a better and cheaper way to alter the stiffness... Read More
Week 7: One Pointe at a Time
Last Friday, my dad managed to land me a small meeting with one of his coworkers at Gore who knows all the tips and tricks of SOLIDWORKS. I brought in my laptop and the Virtisse HH shank I had removed from my shoe a few weeks ago, hoping he could guide me on the best... Read More
Week 6: Tutu Much Music
This week has been solely internship-focused. My ballet studio, the NAU Community Dance Academy, is part of an international program named the Royal Academy of Dance (RAD). As part of the Royal Academy of Dance, students take graded and vocational graded examinations each year. For each level, there is a set curriculum of exercises and... Read More
Week 5: Shank U, Next
This week, I was able to create a rough design of my new shank using SOLIDWORKS! It was a lengthy process that began with extracting the shank from a few old shoes. Since there’s no specific left or right shoe, I only needed to open up one from each pair. Initially, I had planned to... Read More
Week 4: Raising the Barre
This week, I began exploring the SOLIDWORKS program, and it's been quite overwhelming. With what feels like hundreds of buttons and options, it’s hard to know where to start. It took me at least 20 minutes, and a little help from my dad, to figure out how to make a simple cube :D Since then,... Read More
Week 3: Pointe-ing to Tradition
For my spring break blog post, I would like to take a step back and further explain the history and significance of my project. While the first pointe shoe was crafted in the nineteenth century, the physical structure of the shoes has only seen minor changes since then. Research into improving and modernizing a pointe... Read More
Week 2: Toe-tally Innovating
This week I began a deeper dive into material science. I focused my research on materials that will provide medium flexibility, high impact strength, and low water absorption. Medium flexibility ensures the shoe is strong enough to support a dancer's weight, yet flexible enough to allow for full articulation when going "en pointe." High impact... Read More
Week 1: Sole Searching
This week I began my journey into the inside of a pointe shoe. Over the weekend, I attended one of my routine pointe shoe fittings with a specialist in Phoenix. After receiving my new pair of shoes, I began telling him about my senior project. He then showed me a display of the traditional stages... Read More
Getting to the Pointe: An Introduction to the World of Ballet Shoes
Hello everyone! My name is Katie. For the past fourteen years, I have dedicated my free time to ballet. From being a four-year-old who could barely point her toes to now having danced my dream role as the Sugar Plum Fairy, my ballet journey has had many exciting milestones; the most notable being when I... Read More