Kafka Shoes

For the theatre play "Der Prozess" by Franz Kafka, we built ten pairs of remote-controlled shoes.

The process involved making plaster molds and casting lightweight shoes using latex, the mechanical design, as well as the electrical design of the PCBs and programming the microcontrollers.

While the first versions communicated via OSC, the new firmware communicated via the ESP-NOW protocol. But why even using Espressif's ESPxx-Controller and not relying on proper RCs from hobby cars, planes and drones?

Thanks for asking! Of course, budget is always a point. 10 pairs of ESP32 are much cheaper than 10 pairs of proper RCs. But the main point was, that the shoes originally got tracked from a camera on top of the stage and should have had a pre-animated choreography. Facing the realities of how professional theatre works behind the scene, we changed the concept and build tiny controllers for the shoes, so they could be driven manually.