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The Hoverboard is Almost Here!

posted by n1 on Wednesday October 22 2014, @06:58AM   
from the $394-per-mm-of-air dept.

mcgrew writes:

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.

• Re:Any conductive surface? I don't believe it (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday October 22 2014, @10:41AM

  by c0lo (156) on Wednesday October 22 2014, @10:41AM (#108604) Journal

  Their website (and other articles on it) specifically say it has to be "non-ferromagnetic conductor". Do you have a non-ferromagnetic steel sheet ?

  But the T(elegraph) F A(uthor) chose to drop the "non-ferromagnetic" requirement: scientific reporting at its finest.

  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)

  Aluminium may be just fine.

  --
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0

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