14 DAY TRIAL // It's all well and good to look futuristic, but some of those props used in films can be really fragile and/or uncomfortable, which is why shoes like the self-lacing and drying ones from “Back to the Future” haven't been made, until now.
Marty McFly is a pop culture icon, the young man that gets roped into traveling back in time (then forward in time) thus alternatively improving and ruining his present, then improving it right back.
The first film didn't have much in terms of high-tech equipment, since it happened mostly in 1955, but the second part had Marty McFly going to 2015 to stop his own (future) son from ending up in jail.
That's where two of the most famous “gadgets” ever show up: a hoverboard (skateboard that floats) and a pair of sneakers that tie themselves and have special technology inside them that basically keeps them in tip-top condition. They even dry, like the rest of Marty's clothes.
The shoes have since shown up, on and off, but 3D printing is giving them another go, and even allows them to be as springy as the film suggested they were.
Recreus is the company that launched the latest edition, and while the shoes don't look exactly like the ones in the film (they have the Filaflex logo on the front after all), they do have that angular, high-tech feel about them.
Then again, they were never meant to be a perfect replica, because they're supposed to be an homage to all 80's Sci Fi films, like Star Wars, Short Circuit, etc.
The key to making them properly was a new flexible filament. As in, a filament that retains a flexibility even after being heated and molded into a shape, in this case a pair of shoes.
Recreus is a Spanish filament producer, in case you were wondering. The new filament is called FilaFlex, though it isn't the only type used here. PLA was employed as well.
On that note, a dual extruder was used. Recreus actually invented its own extruder and hot end, with a stainless steel M6 barrel that contains a PTFE tube, allowing for easier passing of the flexible filament to a .4mm nozzle.
The new extruder body can be 3D printed itself and is made in such a way that the Filaflex doesn't get tangled during the printing process.
Recreus calls the new shoes Sneakerbot II. These shoes are mostly metallic grey (even though they're made of rubber, or something that resembles it) with an orange flap and purple laces. Ignacio Garcia was the actual designer though, the man behind such things as a Tie Fighter, flexible geometric shapes, and plastic hands.
