Ever wish you could have a hoverboard like in Back to the Future II? Now you can... kind of.
The story I ran across this morning was short on technical details, but the hoverboard will only work above a conductive surface and its battery only lasts seven minutes, apparently using magnetism.
"Our engineering team has been amazing, rapidly iterating on design after design. In fact, this our 18th prototype, and we continue to make advances week after week," says the company’s Kickstarter campaign.
"The magic behind the hoverboard lies in its four disc-shaped hover engines. These create a special magnetic field which literally pushes against itself, generating the lift which levitates our board off the ground."
A pledge of $10,000 will get you one of the first production boards. Expected delivery is October 2015.
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Wednesday October 22 2014, @07:03AM
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/142464853/hendo-hoverboards-worlds-first-real-hoverboard [kickstarter.com]
(Score: 2) by keplr on Wednesday October 22 2014, @07:08AM
It's like saying bumper cars are a universal electric vehicle, or that the early Eva units are fully autonomous. There's no free lunch when it comes to energy, unless you suck that energy from another universe.
I don't respond to ACs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 22 2014, @07:45AM
As soon as the inhabitants of that other universe react to you sucking out their energy, you'll learn that even that is not a free lunch.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mcgrew on Wednesday October 22 2014, @04:39PM
I see you've read Asimov's The Gods Themselves [wikipedia.org].
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by crutchy on Wednesday October 22 2014, @09:13PM
There's no free lunch when it comes to energy
no doubt if you lived in medieval times you would have been crying out that the world was flat. the problem with science is that it makes claims that are supported by mere theories with flimsy proofs by fallible humans. eventually energy may be redefined or the laws of thermodynamics modified to suit new understanding, and people like you will spout that different things are impossible.
those who say something can't be done are usually interrupted by others doing it.
(Score: 2) by crutchy on Wednesday October 22 2014, @09:18PM
sorry keplr. didn't even look at the parent poster name. nothing personal dude. usually i post ac for troll/flamebait comments, but forgot this time. guess i'll prolly have to go find some submissions if i want 50 karma back :-p
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday October 22 2014, @10:09PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday October 22 2014, @07:37AM
Wow! OMG! WTF! In my ***! They are up to the eighteenth prototype? Can anyone possibly comprehend what this means? Any time you get up to an eighteenth prototype, it means that your anti-gravity device is legit! (Or you are just inordinately stubborn at persisting in the face of absolute and total failure.) Just wait until the get to the beta version! Prototype 36 should be the cat's pajamas, or require 1.21 Giga-joules. We await a viable commercial offering in the standard ten years from now.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday October 22 2014, @04:36PM
I saw it again this morning on CBS News. They had a clip of a working prototype, I found it here. [cnet.com]
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday October 22 2014, @04:49PM
Yeah... my prototype only goes up to 11!
It used to only go to 10, but then i thought "why not make it go to 11, you know for when i need just a little more... there you go: up to 11 now!"
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday October 22 2014, @10:08PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by monster on Thursday October 23 2014, @03:11PM
Man, your sarcasm is way unwarranted in this case.
It's not an anti-gravity device, it's a magnetic levitator, FFS. It's proper science and has been tested many times, like with that frog video in that other comment. Looks like their great achievement is being able to put powerful enough batteries in the board to make it levitate without the need of an external device and that is indeed cool. Also, what's wrong with prototyping? So you get a first device that barely keeps itself over the ground, so make some changes to the design, build it again, an so on... and after a few iterations you have a device reliable enough to be shown.
It may be the case that this device is not groundbreaking (he he) or that it still has to be refined some more to be really marketable, but this is the kind of article that so many people around here seems to want instead of political news or systemd flamewars.
(Score: 1) by jamesbond on Wednesday October 22 2014, @07:42AM
Kickstarted said he filed a patent. Where is the patent citation? Quoting Lenz law doesn't make it real. Even with allowing for the whitebox to be real, there is a *scale* factor one has to consider.
(Score: 1) by pmontra on Wednesday October 22 2014, @09:06AM
I quickly searched for hoverboard in the USPTO db and found only one patent from years ago, not their one. I searched for Hendo and found nothing. This is non conclusive and I'd really love to see their patent, if it's real.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Kell on Wednesday October 22 2014, @11:13AM
Available here: https://www.google.com/patents/US20140265690?dq=ininventor:%22D.+Gregory+Henderson%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=0WVGVNPWN8PlsASi_4LYCg&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA [google.com]
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 1) by jamesbond on Wednesday October 22 2014, @01:07PM
Thank you for the link, that makes it more plausible. Off my head I'd say that they still have to solve two big problems though for the hoverboard to work, dynamic stability (e.g. when the magnetic disc is no longer parallel to the opposing conducting sheet) and scale. The patent claims that the technology will work even for loads more than 200 pounds; I reserve my doubt for that.
(Score: 2) by MrGuy on Wednesday October 22 2014, @01:52PM
Let's be clear that there's an ocean of difference between the statements "I filed for a patent" and "I was granted a patent."
Anyone can file for a patent as long as they pay the appropriate fee. Actually getting one is a considerably higher bar.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday October 22 2014, @09:05AM
TFA mentions...
... you guess it: copper - which is diamagnetic [wikipedia.org] (tends to repel the magnetic lines - the most extreme case being the superconductor ones).
Lenz law and eddy currents [youtube.com] or not, I'd like to see them try their hoverboard over a steel sheet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Wednesday October 22 2014, @09:56AM
Their website (and other articles on it) specifically say it has to be "non-ferromagnetic conductor". Do you have a non-ferromagnetic steel sheet ?
Coating a skatepark with copper is the more amusing bit - just thinking about how long it'll last... (accessible copper doesn't tend to stay around for long even with 10s of kV running through it)
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday October 22 2014, @10:41AM
But the T(elegraph) F A(uthor) chose to drop the "non-ferromagnetic" requirement: scientific reporting at its finest.
Aluminium may be just fine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday October 22 2014, @12:17PM
"Do you have a non-ferromagnetic steel sheet ?"
Yeah austenitic stainless steel alloys aka most of them. Three digit number beginning with 2 or 3 or some others pretty much, from memory. "the vast majority" of stainless sold is like this. There are magnetic stainless steels, just not much.
Stainless steel is sorta marketing speak for just another boring steel alloy with more than 5% chromium or so. Its not like its made out of "stainless steel atoms" instead of normal iron atoms in steel. Chromium is nice and expensive compared to iron so whatever you buy will have the minimum regulatory limit of chromium for that specific alloy. But its just another kind of steel, fundamentally.
Don't believe me? If you have real cutlery in your kitchen (assuming you're not a member of the "hot pockets" and takeout tribe) try to stick a fridge magnet. It won't work. Also iron/steel over reddish heat is austenitic and you can do a really shitty job of hardening steel by heating it until a magnet won't stick to the hot steel but will stick to cold steel (aka you didn't just exceed the magnets curie temp) and then dunk it in oil or water or just let it sit and air harden depending on the alloy.
The good news is it doesn't corrode nearly as fast as copper and its tougher than hell. The bad news is you won't like the price and its a PITA to machine and its really heavy.
Another strategy is if you could hover 6 inches over the copper, you could bury copper wires in 4 inches of concrete. In fact concrete with steel rebar might be good enough if the rebar is "smooth" enough.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 22 2014, @01:38PM
Welding stainless steel sucks too but not nearly as much so as aluminum!
(Score: 2) by jcross on Wednesday October 22 2014, @01:54PM
> accessible copper doesn't tend to stay around for long
I can't see any reason they couldn't (electrically) insulate the copper with a layer of vinyl or something. Seems like then it should have similar durability to something like romex wiring. The whole thing might be pretty expensive though, given copper prices these days.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 22 2014, @04:33PM
GP isn't referring to losses due to environmental factors; it's more of human factors (ie, stealing) - and high copper prices will only make it worse.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by metamonkey on Wednesday October 22 2014, @02:46PM
Also, copper is expensive as shit.
I wonder how hot this thing gets. It's just Lenz's law, but they're not using superconductors so they've got ohmic loses and this must consume a significant amount of power.
It's a cute demonstration toy, but that's all.
Okay 3, 2, 1, let's jam.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 22 2014, @01:19PM
Tony Hawk already has one suckas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08pSoZMUT10 [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 23 2014, @01:23AM
Too bad that one was fake (admitted by Tony himself in a later video).