PrimalRun: 3D Printed Barefoot Sports Shoe

About the Project

The human foot's natural flexibility, strength, and adaptability are often restricted by modern shoes' narrow toe boxes, which compromise arch support and increase injury risks during athletic activities. While current barefoot shoes promote healthy gait, they lack durability and affordability for sports. PrimalRun solves this with a low-cost, open-source athletic shoe 3D-printed on consumer FDM printers that preserves toe splay, ground feel, and flexibility, custom-fits any foot type (flat feet, high arches), costs pennies to produce—making it ideal for large-scale donations to underserved communities—and is fully closed-loop: worn shoes can be re-melted into filament and printed into brand-new pairs, creating a zero-waste, truly sustainable system.

Awards

- Most Innovative Award: Macau Joint School Science Exhibition Tech Redefining Design Proposal Competition

- 2nd Place: Macau Joint School Science Exhibition Tech Redefining Design Proposal Competition

- 3rd Place: Macau Joint School Science Exhibition Tech Redefining Design Competition (Finals)

- Research Presentation Certificate: The 66th London International Youth Science Forum

First PrimalRun prototype, tested by my sister!

PrimalRun is printed using TPU filament, by my Prusa Mk3. (My printer was so slow, it took 20+ hours)

Home view of the shoe, featuring its grid pattern design (the pattern can be changed, for example honeycomb pattern, rectilinear pattern, gyroid pattern). Screenshot taken by Prusa G-code Viewer.

Our presentation booth at the London International Youth Science Forum Bazaar, featuring my teammate Adrien!

During the science exhibition, we emphasized on the sustainable concept of PrimalRun and its importance to judges and high school students.

Me and my team winning the MJSSE design proposal awards, representing our school.

Our 3rd place MJSSE victory is published on the Macao newspaper

Our achievements were proudly recognized by our Principal, who celebrated our MJSEE victory representing MAC with PrimalRun.

The Head of Secondary, Principal, and Vice Principal commended our innovation and joined us for a celebratory group photo.

This is just the start of PrimalRun! We have been invited to join the upcoming Science Exhibition in Beijing, where we will improve our design with professionals in the engineering field.