Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Functioning Hoverboard Unveiled (cnn.com)

Posted by Soulskill on from the hello-mcfly dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Last year, a company called Arx Pax set up a Kickstarter campaign to develop a functioning hoverboard. Now, the company has demonstrated an updated version of the device, which is fully capable of hovering over a surface made out of conductive metal (video on YouTube). CEO Greg Henderson said, "The hover engine creates a primary magnetic field which is then put over a candidate surface like aluminum or copper. The hover engine then creates swirls of electricity and those create a secondary magnetic field, which propels the firsts." The device is expensive; Arx Pax is delivering a handful of units to Kickstarter backers who contributed $10,000. It's out of the reach of typical consumers, but it does seem to work. Plus, the company is sharing their magnetic field technology with teams taking part in the competition to build pods for a prototype of Elon Musk's Hyperloop vacuum tube transportation system.

13 of 55 comments (clear)

  1. It's just maglev. by meerling · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We've been doing maglev for quite a while now, though few people tried to ride them like a skateboard before. I still haven't seen anything they've done new other than the hype. Now when they don't need a special surface to function, then they can call it a hoverboard.

    1. Re:It's just maglev. by TeknoHog · · Score: 3, Interesting

      This. For surface independence, try developing plasma levitation instead.

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
    2. Re:It's just maglev. by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 2

      We've been doing maglev for quite a while now

      We've been doing THIS for quite a while now. This thing was first announced and a demo video released months ago. It's old news.

    3. Re:It's just maglev. by DrTJ · · Score: 3, Informative

      All other problems aside, that hovercraft would spew out enormous amounts of poisonous gas.

      The ionized oxygen atoms would recombine into O2 and O3 and various NOx molecules. NOx isn't good for you, but ozone (O3) is directly poisonous. It's as bad as (or even worse than) HCN - hydrogen cyanide. LD50 is about 22 ppm (for mice).

      I wouldn't want one.

    4. Re:It's just maglev. by Rei · · Score: 2

      Doesn't even seem that well designed. If you want something that even approaches the dexterity a person gets on a skateboard you can't just drift like a hovercraft. If a person leans to the side it should resist drifting to the opposite side (as if wheels were gripping in). Otherwise it's like trying to balance on a tightrope. Also, the hovering elements should be independently pivoted - otherwise, with such a low clearance, it's going to be stuck to perfectly flat surfaces, limiting the potential fun (over the fact that you can only use it atop metal).

      Hmm, now that got me wondering... I almost wonder if it would be possible to design a system to hover off of the rebar embedded in concrete - sidewalks, streets, interior spaces, etc. That could vastly extend the amount of surfaces you could use it on. Obviously not all rebar is spaced evenly, but...

      --
      "Oh, goodness. Look at my wrist, I have to go." "But what about your clothes?" "I don't love these."
    5. Re:It's just maglev. by raxx7 · · Score: 2

      I'm not aware of any practical maglev system which levitates by using magnetic repulsion against a simple sheet of metal (copper).
      Depending on how much power they're using and whether they can make it work with a cheaper metal than copper, this can be an interesting technology.

    6. Re:It's just maglev. by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      Hmm, now that got me wondering... I almost wonder if it would be possible to design a system to hover off of the rebar embedded in concrete - sidewalks, streets, interior spaces, etc.

      Sidewalks and streets don't contain rebar. They use something called "concrete underlayment" which is 10-12 gauge galvanized steel wire mesh with a 6" square pattern... if anything.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  2. Swirls of electricity? by TWX · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm not sure how to interpret "swirls of electricity", either in terms of particles or in terms of field theory...

    --
    Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    1. Re:Swirls of electricity? by NIK282000 · · Score: 2

      Google "Mechanical Maglev" a guy named Bill Beaty has you covered.

      --
      Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all
  3. Nope. by Bovius · · Score: 2

    This board will not win me chicks. It will not help me find an almanac from the future. It will not make me Marty McFly.

    No sale.

  4. I've seen it since at least the 1950s by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 3, Interesting

    We've been doing maglev for quite a while now, though few people tried to ride them like a skateboard before.

    No kidding.

    The electrical demos in Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry had a demonstrator in the late '50s. It was a half-transformer-like device about the size of a small outside unit for a whole-house air conditioner - a cylinder about 3 feet across and three feet high.

    It generated a large, repulsive, "elevator field" in the center - over the bulk of the upper surface, and a slightly inward-directed "fence field" around the perimiter, to keep whatever it was floating centered.

    What they usually floated was a metal (copper?) disk about 3 feet across, which floated maybe 6 inches above the device. They could angle the fence field slightly and make the disk spin slowly. The guy demonstrating it also removed the device by holding a second, slightly larger, disk just below it and edging it into the field from the side. When this was moved into the fence field it disrupted it at that spot, so the remaining fields convenient spit the disk onto this "hot tray.

    And hot tray it was. The disk got hot from the eddy currents. The demonstrator said they had considered using this as a stovetop (anticipating induction cooktops, but with levitation) but it hadn't worked out.

    Came back a decade later and they were still using it - but the sides of the disk had gotten folded upward about 30 degrees and somewhat randomly, turning it into an artsy-looking bowl. Seems somebody had left it floating long enough for the metal to soften, and the fence fields had pushed it up.

    Miniaturizing the elevator-field portion of this, probably raising the frequency, and turning it upside down, with field-shape tweaks to keep it level, would produce an over-a-conductive-plate hoverboard. Tweak the fence fields into a couple linear motors along the edge to provide propulsion and steering. (You might even be able to set up the fields so you accelerate, brake, and steer by tilting, making local effects stronger on particular regions of the edge by bringing the pole pieces closer to the conductive surface.)

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
  5. Re:How many times will this be news? by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 2

    http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/08/05/1719216/lexus-unveils-its-working-hoverboard
    http://science.slashdot.org/story/15/06/27/065219/the-physics-of-lexuss-hoverboard
    http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/06/24/2155236/lexus-creates-a-hoverboard
    http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/05/23/2157208/the-hoverboard-flies-closer-to-reality
    ...

    --
    Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
  6. Magnets by tommeke100 · · Score: 2

    If you use metal as surface (probably somehow magnetized), couldn't you just hover it with magnets? I mean, what's the big deal here?