designing shoe boats

[flourish]

I have no experience or knowledge of boat building. I'm a physics student, and I'mworking with a civil engineering student friend of mine. We want to build some shoe boats... like shoes that would allow you to walk around on water. We found some designs online, but they were huge, and had clunky systems for propulsion and such. I think we've got some better ideas.

We've worked out the figures in terms of things like volume, max weight, and some rough figures on wieght distribution to give anyone taller than a midget an opportunity to actually keep upright in the things for a 100kg person. (That last subject is one we really don't know how to work out exactly. Any advice on it?) For propulsion we figured we'd try either making them light enough to pick up out of the water some so that people can take steps (but I don't think that's actually going to work), or putting a kindof contracting fin on the shoe. The fins would push open when pressure is is run from the back of the shoe to the front, and close when pressure from water is applied the other direction, so the forward pushing shoe will have less drag than the other shoe. Sounds slow, but maybe it'll have to be.

Does anyone have advice on how to do this? Where to start researching? What kindof materials to use? Keep in mind we've got really limited budgets and probably a really limited amount of experience with the materials. Sudgestions?

If you've seen the movie Ever After, then you'll recognize the inspiration for these from Davinci's water walking act.