Amateur tinkerer creates self-tightening ‘Power Laces Shoes’

WASHINGTON - Bid adieu to that daily hassle of tying your shoelaces before leaving from home, for now an amateur tinkerer has developed what could be called ’self-tightening Power Laces Shoes’, inspired by the ones featured in Back to the Future Part II’.

Blake Bevin created Power Laces Shoe in less than five months, with no formal electronics training.

And now she is set to give competition to Nike’s patent ‘automatic lacing system’.

“I’m pretty much self-taught. I use Google a lot. I’ve just always been into science. I’ve read a lot of books about it. I don’t have a lot of formal education,” ABC News quoted Bevin, a 27-year-old hotel manager by day, as saying.

The shoe uses small motors that pull the shoelaces tight at the touch of a small button on the side of the shoe.

While the shoe is being highly sought after by sci-fi lovers and “Back to the Future” fanboys, Bevin said it was originally intended to help the elderly or disabled.

“I thought that something like that might be able to help people who can’t tie shoes on their own,” said Bevin.

To develop the shoe, Bevin started a project on Kickstarter.com, a website created “as a new way to fund creative ideas and ambitious endeavors” through donations, according to the website.

Currently, 128 people have contributed to the Power Laces.

Bevin said she hopes to use the donations, right now at about one-fourth of her goal, to hire a couple engineers to help her develop the final version of the Power Laces.

That version will feature a special heel censor to trigger the tightening, meaning the wearer can do it with no hands. (ANI)