Best Shoe Outsole
Background
• The purpose of the experiment is to find the best
material for an outsole to increase grip. The
experiment was preformed because there are
too many basketball players that are getting
injured due to not having enough grip on the
court.
• The main audience of this experiment is the
athletes that are slipping on court. They need
shoes with better grip to prevent slipping. This
experiment will help by giving the athletes
another option for an outsole material for the
shoes.
• According to Encyclopedia Britannia (n.d), The
smallest amount of force required to start motion
is always greater than the force needed to
continue the motion. This is important because
the more weight that you need to start the
movement will make it harder to slip while
stopping. This is important because knowing
what it takes to slip helps to determine if the
outsole would slip(Encyclopedia Britannica n.d).
According to Sanya, Oji, Owoeye, and Egbochie,
(2019). The stiffness, strength and toughness of
epoxy composites reinforced with particulate
fillers including fused silica, glass powder and
mineral silica increase up to 40%
(sanyaetal.,2019)
Engineering Goals
Engineering goals: The goal of the experiment is
to determine the best material that is easily
available to improve the amount of grip that
the shoe has.
Hypothesis: The liquid rubber material that is
tested will outperform the other materials.
Independent variable: The independent
variable of the experiment is the material that
will be tested.
Dependent variable: The dependent variable is
the amount of weight (Kg) the shoe can hold
before slipping.
Control variable: The control variable in the
fixed slope that the test will be conducted on.
Material and Methods
Materials
● Shoe, silicon, liquid rubber, flat wood surface. weights, leveler
Method(s)
1.Build a fixed slope of 12 degrees and mark on
the platform of wood where all the tests would
be performed.
2.Make the outsoles for the shoes by putting
plastic wrap around the shoe to protect the
shoe
3.Spray liquid rubber onto the plastic wrap in
thin coats with an hour in-between coats.
4. Spray 4 coats of rubber on the shoe.
5.Wait 24 hours for the rubber to cure.
6.Put a line of silicon on one side of the shoe
7.Spread the silicon out evenly throughout the
outsole
8.Test the control by inserting a 5lbs weight in
the shoe and having weights put behind the
shoe to push the shoe.
9.Test 5 times
10.Repeat for the Silicon and Liquid rubber
11.Record the amount of weight that the shoe
holds before the shoe started sliding.
Diagram of what the setup should look like
Results
Above is a graph on the amount of weight the
outsole held from the back.
Above is a graph that shows the amount of weight
the outsoles held from the side.
There are two graphs, one from the back of the
shoe to represent the forces of stopping. The test
from the side represents the force from a hard
sidestep. From averaging the 5 test for each type of
test, the best material that was tested was the
silicon. The silicon was significantly better than the
liquid rubber and the control outsoles. The worse
material is no material at all. Liquid rubber is
better than no outsole at all only by a small
margin. The mean for the silicon with weights on
the back was 24.8 while for the rubber it was 4.98.
The silicon outsole had the best results. For the side
the mean of the silicon is 25.64 while the liquid
rubber a mean of 4.3. With these two means it
shows that the side of the silicon has the strongest
grip while the side of liquid rubber had the least
amount of grip. The means for the control tests are
for the back it is 3.62 and the side is 3.62. The
results for the control were the same throughout
the test and only 0.7 Kg off from the side for the
liquid rubber.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the results the were collected from the data
did not match the hypothesis that was made before
testing. The expected outcome was for the liquid rubber to
be the best performing material but was not. Some
reasons that this could have been was not having enough
coat of liquid rubber on the outsole when testing, not
having enough texture on the outsole to increase the
friction, or curing the rubber out in the sun, which could
have affected the curing process, making it not have some
rubber properties. The platform that was used was not
cleaned before testing so the results could not be true due
to the amount of dust on the board was lesser for the later
test leading to the silicon having the most grip. When
spreading the silicon, the spreading was not even
throughout leaving bubbles and bumps throughout the
outsole. This could have given the outsole more texture
leading to more grip.
References
EB editors. (n.d.). Friction. Britannica
School. Retrieved December 5,
2021,
from https://school.eb.com/levels
Sanya, O. T., Oji, B., Owoeye, S.
S., &
Egbochie, E. J. (2019, June 26)
Influence of particle size and
particle loading on mechanical
properties of silicon carbide
–reinforced epoxy composites
galileo. Retrieved December 5,
2021, from https://eds-p
-ebscohost-com.proxygsu-
scob.galileo.
usg.edu/eds/pdfviewer
/pdfviewer?vid=2&sid=9cd422e3-
34b4-47af-a8fa-
a724166622a5%40redis.