The seams of sneakers can be hard on people’s feet especially if they are athletes. When you overlap material, it creates ridges that rub on your skin and the edges of your feet cram into the corners where the upper meets the sole. This can cause discomfort when an athlete switches directions or plants their feet. Nike wants to fix these movements with their new Flyknit 360 tech shoe, which feel more like wearing comfy socks. They first showed the 360 technologies in their Mercurial Superfly 360, which was back in February. Nike knits its Flyknit uppers from thread, which uses recycled polymer as the base, but also incorporates other materials for support and weather resistance. With the knitting process, the one-piece upper can be freely manipulated using different types of yarns. Using this method also allows Nike to used a smaller machine that can be deployed to different parts of the world.
Rather than shipping completed sneakers they can send out the raw materials. The shoe also features an internal, hardened chassis created to match each shoe depending on its size. With 360 tech a shoe can be a more specific fit that can match an athletes bone composition. Heat is used to evenly harden pieces where support is needed, and the stiffer parts are woven into a 360-degree sock rather than glued on. With this shoe manufacturing methods waste is cut down by almost 60 percent. As a writer for 3DShoes.com I am very impressed with this creation. The Flyknit 360 is not going to make custom shoes on a personal basis, but it is something that we should expect to see in the future.
Original Article: https://www.popsci.com/nike-flyknit-360-sneakers#page-6
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