We Made SELF-LACING SHOES from BACK TO THE FUTURE

We don't think the Hacksmith knows how to tie his own shoes, so we set out to design a pair of self-lacing shoes for Back to the Future. We've noticed that you don't know how to tie your own shoes. Oh my god, they're self-lacing shoes! So I've been a part of this team for about a year now, and I've noticed something. As crazy as it might sound, I don't think James knows how to tie his own shoes. What? You made me sit up and roll for that? Yeah. See? What? No laces. Not laces. Drawstrings. Water shoes? Velcro. What's your point? That proves nothing. Daryl has enlisted my help in creating self-lacing shoes for James. The first thing we think about is Back to the Future 2. Marty has an awesome pair. We're going to draw some inspiration from those. Power laces, all right! We have been fortunate enough to partner with Vessi on this project. They have sent us a few different pairs of shoes to work with. Check out their awesome line of shoes in the link in the description below. Like any project, I'll need to do some testing on some possible methods to see what will work. Self-lacing shoes, test one. Drones. Go. Test two, self-lacing shoes. The lathe. Whoa, whoa, what's it doing? Ah, stop, stop, stop! Test three. Rockets. That kinda worked. Take four. Team tug of war. Are you ready guys? One, two, three, go. Test six. There's a car attached to my foot. Test seven. A drill. Wait a minute, this might actually work. This video is sponsored by Vessi shoes. Waterproof, super comfortable shoes that you can order online. I don't know about you, but I hate getting wet feet. I also don't like wearing boots. Vessi shoes are 100% waterproof and snowproof. Not water resistant, 100% waterproof. Thanks to Dymotex material. Dry toes! They're super easy to clean and probably some of the most comfortable shoes I've ever worn. They feel like slippers. I absolutely love wearing them when I'm one wheeling. Made from sustainable materials and no animal byproducts, you can feel good wearing these every day. In fact, I got my entire team pairs of Vessi's. They have an incredible early Black Friday offer right now, so grab yourself a pair for the rainy season while they still have sizes and you can thank me later. Check them out in the link below. And don't worry if you miss the Black Friday sale, you can use my code in the description below to get $25 off your Vessi shoes. It all starts with this motor. It spins much in the same way a drill does. My plan is to use multiple laces. Each lace will be fastened at one end to the shoe itself and on the other end will be attached to this spool that I custom designed and 3D printed. The spool is then mounted to the motor and the pair of those are mounted somewhere in the shoe. When the motor is activated, it spins the spool, winding up the laces, tightening the shoe. The question is, where am I going to mount all the necessary components and electronics to make this work? I've gone and modeled the sole and SOLIDWORKS so I can figure out how and where to fit all the components as well as how much of the sole needs to be excavated. Hey Jimmy, you ready to dig? I'm ready to dig. So I have this template. We have multiple smaller holes inside of the sole. I'm going to be cutting these out first and then cut out the outer section of it and gluing it onto the bottom of the shoe. By doing that, I'll have a nice template to then run along the edges with my knife and hopefully, with some mild success, cut out the pockets for the shoe. Okay, while Jimmy's working on the left shoe, I've been tasked with setting up the laces on the right shoe. Let's get on that. Now we're going to have to make some holes on this side that go inside the shoe. So then the laces here. Now we don't want that fraying, so let's melt that down. We'll have to sew this in place on this side. So that's a shoe done. That took a really long time. I'm sick of this. My task is to sew the laces onto the spool. So I've marked on the laces where I want them to meet the spool so there's proper tension on top. Then I'm going to cut them to length, burn the edges, and sew through. All right, I'm all done. It's time to give it to Ben. Dave and Jimmy did an amazing job with the shoe, but we have one problem. All the material that's been removed has destroyed the structural integrity of the shoe. So to fix this, I've designed a stainless steel insert, kind of like heavy-duty Dr. Scholl, that I'll have bogged in laser cut on our new fiber laser. We need to design a custom circuit board that holds all the electronics that controls the shoe. Well, let's hop into Altium Designer, the industry standard for PCB design. You can download Altium Designer and try it for free at altium.com slash yt slash thehacksmith. They also have Altium Viewer, a free online viewer that allows people to view all kinds of file formats. If you want to check out the schematic for this project, head on over to maker.io. It's in the link in the description below. So everyone did an amazing job with all the parts. I have everything in front of me. Let's get to building. Time for some glue. Time to join the pieces. Hopefully they fit. So the shoe is done. Everything's mounted. I think it's going to work. To top it all off, Owen designed this super awesome, amazing box for us to present the shoe with James. Let's just get in here with the other one and we'll be good. Hey James, can you come to the live stream for a second? Okay. What's this about? Uh, so we've gathered here to tell you that we've, we've noticed that you don't know how to tie your own shoes. What? I know how to tie my own shoes. You only wear slip-ons. Never tie your own shoes in front of us. So we just assumed that you just don't know how to tie your own shoes. You know, you know how insulting that is? I built this entire engineering company. I employ all of you guys. I've designed a half-scale Cybertruck, an Ironman helmet, exoskeletons, numerous things. And you don't think I can tie my own shoes? Yeah. You know what? If you're so confident, show us. I don't, I don't need to prove this. Wait, wait, wait. Hold on one second. One second. What's that? Come back, come back. What? We've got something to show you. Ben, I think you're gonna like them. These are just the Vessies. I've already filmed the sponsorship. They ain't no, they're not just Vessies. The heck are these? Put them on. How do I tie them? A button on the side, a little black button. Oh my god, they're self-lacing shoes! How did you make these? So flip it up, take a look at the bottom of the soles. Took just a standard LiPo battery, a standard DC motor, a couple custom 3D printed parts and Arduino, and then some help with everyone in the shop, and you have some self-lacing shoes. That is awesome. We gotta take these to market. You know, it's true. When something exceeds your ability to understand how it works, it becomes almost magical. And that's exactly what we've done here. Hi, my name is James Hobson, but you may know me as the Hacksmith. I'm a lot of things actually. A YouTuber, an inventor, a business owner, a cat owner, the list goes on. The one thing I am not is someone who knows how to tie their own shoes. But as of today, that no longer matters. Hacksmith Industries is proud to present the self-lacing shoe. Gone are the days of bunny ears around the tree and through the loop. Advanced programming, printed circuit boards, and a built-in motor easily replaces all that nonsense. Simply push a button and you'll be on your way. I don't have to change myself to fit the product. It fits me. The plasma-based retractable lightsaber was a revolution, and we learned so much from it. But instead of pursuing that further, we decided to devote all of our time and resources to solving a problem most have tackled by age five. Sure, I could take 30 seconds and watch a tutorial. I'd be tying my own shoes in seconds. But that's not why I started Hacksmith Industries. That's not why I have this amazing team and this giant facility. At Hacksmith Industries, we strive to push the envelope. Today, I am proud to announce that we are launching our very first product for the public consumer. The self-lacing shoe will be available with support from people like you. This is going to send a giant ripple through the universe. They say Einstein had multiple versions of the same clothes, so they didn't have to waste any brainpower deciding what to wear. But he still tied his own shoes. What an idiot. All right, these are freaking awesome. I think this was a great example of what our team here can do without me even being in the video. Because obviously, I can't be in every single video. Now, if you guys want to grab your own pair of self-lacing shoes, make sure you check out our Kickstarter link in the description below. And we may be working on another Back to the Future project. It's...