I’m starting to hear things about Jupiter Ascending, but no one mentioned the cool boots until my bud, Drew Fustini posted this video on Google+.  Apparently the boots are pretty hot, since they zip through the air with a glow of blue light, and Cabe Atwell, maker extraordinaire,  just happened to have a pair of old boots sitting around at his shop. Cool project ensues according to his post on Solid Smack.

Cabe said he wasn’t going for accuracy, which is evident, because he didn’t mention any hovercraft blueprints. What he liked was the idea of building subtly glowing boots that you could wear every day. This leads directly to the exciting part of the project–drilling 1/2″ holes into the bottom of his boots.

Then he prepares LEDs throwie style, taking blue LEDs and shrink tubing them to batteries. He’s got over 30 for his style of boots, which have a fairly flat sole, making them ideal for this hack. The LEDS will need to be protected, so he uses a lathe to cut polycarbonate discs. I’m thinking this seems like a lot of work for LEDs that will soon need to be changed out, but I just really like his determination to get the project done!

Once the discs are cut, they are inserted, along with the LEDs into the boots. Cabe definitely liked the look.

I was surprised how cool it was to have ground effects on my feet. Think about it. You stand there, no light shows… when you walk, you are lighting up the scene like Billy Jean.

He also had some plans for version 2.0.

Jupiter Ascending Caine cosplay might be a cool use for this project, but I think it has further potential. Light color changing and flashing effects are in order. I plan to make each LED/Disc an enclosed plug. You would just pop them in as needed. That is, if your shoes had holes in them.

My thoughts would be to get some NeoPixel strips that slide into the bottoms of shoes that have translucent bottoms, much like Nat-2 is doing. Or, if you like the idea of plugs, it might be good to try fat NeoPixels with legs. Then you could still put them in old school style, but you would definitely have to solder for communication. For those of you who are fans of lights in your shoes, you might want to try your hand at our Firewalker Sneaker tutorial. It’s a bit splashy, but movement makes the lights cycle. Woooh…

Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!