Golden Tweet Boots

I met a BBC Robot Wars judge recently. Actually when we first met I was more interested in her gold coloured boots that were ‘tweet’ enabled. Dr Lucy Rogers describes herself as someone who makes engineering fun. She hacks, she makes, she writes and she is an influencer. Her book It’s ONLY Rocket Science published in 2015 is written in plain English and she has been named as one of 10 people who should be followed if you want a career in artificial intelligence and robotics.

Lucy sat in the Semple atelier in her golden boots and I watched in fascination and then played like a child as I sent tweets to her boots and watched them change colour. She produced a bunny out of her bag and even though she wasn’t showing me a magic trick she did light up the bunny’s heart with a tweet message for Easter.

But what’s this got to do with Semple? Many of you will remember my exploration in 2009 of embedding technology in to a dress to test whether it could send and receive messages to the Semple website. At that time I looked into QR codes and RFID tags but the mobile technology was limited. Much has developed in the last eight years and it is scientists like Lucy who are pushing boundaries and on the way, are affecting our lives.

Right from the beginning of Semple I have explored the intersection between STEM (science, technology, engineering, maths) and fashion. That discussion continues and new relationships refresh my curiosity that can lead to unplanned innovation.

So while I wouldn’t wear golden boots I can certainly tweet!