Since April 2022, several centers in the Valencian Community and from different professional families have been collaborating, under the direction of CIDA, on the CALCEMAT project, which aims to create adapted digital footwear. The intention has been very broad and has achieved very good results because it has allowed working with students from six educational centers in the creation of a product that includes digitization and the technology used by companies in the sector. This project is based on the challenge of being able to develop footwear suitable for a diabetic patient, taking biometric data from the foot, creating a shoe adapted in shape to it, with a knitted fabric that, in addition to accommodating the foot, is breathable, does not cause injuries, and, why not, is aesthetically pleasing. All this supported by a sole and heel that will house a series of sensors capable of detecting foot parameters, such as temperature, humidity, pressure, position detection with gyroscope and accelerometer.
Making this possible are the centers IES Sixto Marco from Elx (Alicante), IES La Torreta d’Elda (Alicante), with vocational training cycles related to the Footwear sector and its accessories. Although there are other cycles such as Technical Design in Textile and Leather at IES Cotes Baixes in Alcoi (Alicante) alongside the Wood, Furniture, and Cork Family, Mechanical Manufacturing cycles at IES Antonio José Cavanilles in Alicante, and also Industrial Automation and Robotics and Development and manufacturing of ceramic products at IES Serra de Espadà in Onda (Castellón). Innovative companies such as RIERA SL, TECNOTAT SL, Inyectados MEGA, COMERPLAST, ASCER, LAUD, and technological institutes such as INESCOP and AITEX, as well as the Marble Association of Alicante, have also collaborated. The variety and breadth of this project are perhaps the most striking to highlight the importance of collaboration and the application of active methodologies in classrooms for vocational training students from apparently very different families, who actually share the same goal: preparing students to enter the workforce with the most suitable and updated tools.
This is a project aimed at bringing together synergies from various vocational specialties, aimed at understanding and discovering points of convergence with other technologies and collaborating among them.
Each center has shown the rest the characteristics of its own technology, applications and areas of development for different specialties have been known, and the exchange of ideas and personal relationships between colleagues from different centers and specialties that contribute to the constant improvement of the skills of both teachers and students has been favored.
Soon, the project will come to an end and we will inform about the final results and why not? take a step further: a CALCEMAT II with other purposes applied to sports footwear, safety footwear, etc.
We will continue to inform.