The future is now: Hendo Hoverboards are the first real, working, hoverboards.
Every year, people joke that they “only have X years left” to build a working hoverboard prototype before we reach that October, 2015 deadline – the year Marty and Doc travel to in Back to The Future Part 2. Well, now, I’m very happy to report that hey, we just might get one out there before next year, as Hendo Hoverboards has gone ahead and produced a 100% real, working hoverboard prototype.
Hendo’s Kickstarter campaign only went up yesterday, but has already raised $194,000 of it’s $250,000 goal. Hendo says that the prototype is real and works, and has video proof to back that up, and is raising the money from Kickstarter to help produce them, and to create places to ride them. What do I mean by “places to ride them?” Well, unfortunately, the hoveboards won’t actually hover over any surface – only non-ferromagnetic conductors (a fancy type of metal).
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 the board off the ground. It’s essentially the same technology used in high-speed Maglev trains. The board is self-propelled, and you’ll be able to move it by pushing your foot on the ground – just like a real skateboard.
As for the movie? Well, “Yep, there was a movie,” reads Hendo’s official statement, “However, our attorneys have told us not to go there. So this is as far as we’ll take it.
Furthermore, Hendo is also offering the “Whitebox Development Kit” to early adopters, which uses the exact same technology of the hoverboard in a more compact form, allowing potential developers to create new and interesting ways to use the hover tech.
Unfortunately, this kind of sweet tech does come at a price, as the minimum Kickstarter donation required to own your very own Hendo Hoverboard is $10,000. It seems the expectation of the Kickstarter is instead that various hoveboard skateparks will be created, where fans can use the boards for a small fee, rather than owning their own board.
Source: Kickstarter
