Idea Volcano

read, share, suggest, and use cracking business ideas

1. william berry 06.20.07 / 3pm

   sounds brilliant. You could link it to your entire outfit. then as you leap around like a total maniac: a massive cacophony of sound would deafen the poor souls around you. Useful for clearing a path through a busy oxford street

   I think your idea could be a great hit with kids. Maybe you could have some kind of interaction between 2 kids who each have beatbox shoes? The closer they are, different sounds play? Different effects?

   Maybe the old fiddler game where one person taps out a song then the other has to beat it!….
2. Charlie A 06.20.07 / 3pm

   Neat. Trevor Bayliss, the guy who invented the wind-up radio, has been working on a shoe that generates electricity. He was planning to create a shoe that could power your mobile phone.

   Perhaps someone could use his technology and this idea to create a self-powered beat-box shoe.

   Or maybe take those wheelie shoes and add a micro-generator that creates power as the wheels spin and creates a sound like a speeding motorbike.
3. Philip Wilkinson 06.20.07 / 4pm

   How loud would the sound be and where would the speaker be?
4. Jake Coltman 06.20.07 / 4pm

   Have you seen the small demo than Nintendo made for the Wii pre-launch? In the background an orchestra played, and they played faster and slower according to how fast the person waved the controller. So, if the shoes had some small speakers in them, they could play the music at varying speeds according to how fast the pressure pads are touched
5. Philip Wilkinson 06.20.07 / 4pm

   Another question - any ideas how much it would cost to make a prototype and try it out?
6. Jamie 06.20.07 / 4pm

   Couldnt we put a speaker on the back of your ankle, embedded in the fabric of the trainers? actual speaker mechanics are pretty slim in diameter…..
7. Alex Tew 06.20.07 / 5pm

   Great idea - I could imagine this working as kids would love it, but it would get quite annoying for the rest of us!

   That said, it would be cool if there were ways to expand the shoe, perhaps an interchangable pad on the sides of tongue of the shoe, that carries different sounds. Kids could swap them in the playgroud.

   Perhaps a primitive recording mechanism would be good, so kids could compete to create better beats and share them. Going further, how about a mic built into the tongue, that way kids could add raps and further beatbox sounds to the shoes.

   Why not go all the way and have a USB connection and some software that comes with the show for editing sounds and beat ideas on the PC. It would be a great way to get kids interested in music.
8. Jake Coltman 06.20.07 / 5pm

   That would work, you could have two pressure pads in the squishy rubber on the sole. The speaker could then be held in place between the back of the heal and a protective layer of foam. The heal could then have a circle of holes in it to release the sound, as seen in other speakers
9. Philippa 06.20.07 / 5pm

   That’s how I envisage it with a small built-in speaker. The speaker could be switched off with a tiny switch when you weren’t dancing. Perhaps it could be charged up just like a mobile phone with a wire on a coil in a discrete pocket - that way it wouldn’t need heavy batteries. Although I like the idea it might generate power itself.
10. caroline t 06.20.07 / 5pm

    What about the beatbox airplay on the Chris Evans show?!
    Seriously speaking… A grand idea to make your mark might give you £1,000 to get this going. Great for kids - we did something similar with thousands of kids in the north east - you could customise one of the noises as an alarm or just make walking to school a lot more fun!!
11. Mart Sanders 06.20.07 / 6pm

    Sorry… save your money. It will not work and cost too much to get up…
12. Dave Critchley 06.20.07 / 6pm

    Hi Phillipa
    Why not have connecting cable running down trouser leg, with a spur off for a belt mounted battery pack, and another that goes up to a pair of headphones. That way all can be played privately if required, or through shoe mounted speakers,
    And if you can market these shoes well, I might let you mention our own Check a Note Detector on Chris’s show and if allowed, pay you a commission ??
    What do you thnk.
    VCheers
    Dave C
13. Dave Critchley 06.20.07 / 6pm

    Hi Phillipa
    Why not have connecting cable running down trouser leg, with a spur off for a belt mounted battery pack and or bigger speakers, and another that goes up to a pair of headphones. That way all can be played privately if required, or through shoe mounted speakers,
    And if you can market these shoes well, I might let you mention our own Check a Note Detector on Chris’s show and if allowed, pay you a commission ??
    What do you thnk.
    VCheers
    Dave C
14. tariq mirza 06.20.07 / 7pm

    hi all, a friend has called me to let me know that that someone mentioned a product that we are developing called BamZ interactive insoles.

    we have the patents for most of your discussion points thus far.

    very interesting
15. Mart Sanders 06.20.07 / 7pm

    Hi tariq mirza

    This is discussing and Idea. You cannot patent and Idea… A design… ok, but its going to be tight as there are too many variation which would constitute a ‘Different’ design.
16. turtly6 06.20.07 / 7pm

    My child says he saw a program with something like that on it.
17. turtly6 06.20.07 / 7pm

    It was called Horrid Henry
18. Tariq Mirza 06.21.07 / 1am

    Hi Mart,

    I didn’t mean it in a negative way, it was as a positive, I just wanted to highlight that we filed patents for this type of options back in 2003 and are already producing something like this in the far east. In addition, we launched a similar product it Hamleys earlier this year (an actual product with external text programming options).

    So for us, it not a idea, it is already a product.

    www.BamZ.com
19. Crystal 06.21.07 / 1pm

    i think they would be good for a while but like heeleys they will be ban from shopping malls because they make too much noise plus they will probably cost loads.
20. Liah 06.21.07 / 1pm

    hi
    i think that it would be a great idea. But like wouldn’t the shoe be bigger than normal ones. It would a bit urgh boogieng on the dance floor with some massivo shoes. Also what if there were more than 2 mates dancing with those shoes it would be a mess! Pricy idea!
21. KeithF 06.21.07 / 2pm

    In principle a great idea although research and development would be prohibitive to all but the largest corporations. However instead of a fashion item this could be a great game and marketed as such. Broadens the R&D prospective companies (alas i suspect the majority in the Far East, be good if a British company could take the lead with production here).
22. Davy 06.21.07 / 8pm

    The idea isn’t too bad- but the comments it has generated are woeful.
23. Hugo L 06.22.07 / 1pm

    Anyone looking to develop this idea further should look up a material by the name of QTC (quantum tunneling composite). This material is like paper, and acts as a variable electronic pressure pad, so the noise output could be varied depending on the pressures applied at each point - perhaps it could be developed as a form of insole - not sure about the IPR and patents though - pretty well covered I guess…
24. Derek 12.09.07 / 7pm

    My son’s trainers sing all by themselves or is that hum?
    Sorry just could not resist that one.
    To be fair I can see kids loving this one and I don’t think they would have to be all singing and dancing to be great fun.
    Lot’s of ideas came to mind about what might be heard from the little darlings shoes as they walk by.
25. Daily Networker » Blog Archive » Cabbages, Wiggles and Whistles 02.28.08 / 12am

    […] new Beatbox Shoes were one of the very first ideas put forward when we launched Idea Volcano, the site for spare […]

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