YES! Finally a hoverboard!

[rocklobster]

Granted, it's just a prototype, but this is *cue Rainbow Dash squee* so awesome! I've been wanting one of these ever since I saw Back to the Future 2. And now one's finally being made!
Here's a video of it in action: click here!

[Crossfire]

Well, they sure made a prototype... albeit a miniaturized version. Until they make a board that someone can actually stand on, and perhaps even *gasp* move, I won't be that impressed.

[rocklobster]

Hey, have to start somewhere right?

[Yuki-Anne]

Well, they sure made a prototype... albeit a miniaturized version. Until they make a board that someone can actually stand on, and perhaps even *gasp* move, I won't be that impressed.

This. Until someone can actually ride it, it's really just a science fair project.

[Wolfsong]

Yeah, Back to the Future 2 really made me want one of these...I hope they can make it work

[Vilo159]

Its just inducting things with magnetism, it probably doesn't last too long. They could put some small electric motor pn the back with a little propellor, though.

[mechana2015]

Yeah that's just a balanced magnet on a field. To make this anything near work in real life would require a magnetic field to be embedded in the riding area so strong that it would probably blank every computer and cell phone within 50 feet, let alone what a board with enough neodymium to support your weight could do to your electronics just by carrying it (not to mention the cost and the issue with it grabbing any nearby metallic object). You could solve this with an on/off electromagnet in the board, but it doesn't solve the issues inherent to magnetic fields capable of supporting human weight and the riding area pretty much being anathema to the elements that underlay pretty much everything we rely on for modern society to function.

[Furen]

I agree with crossfire, it's gotta at least be large enough (I'm not going to worry if we can't use it still) until then, I'm not getting my hopes up.

I recall watching HouseholdHacker do a similar project for hover shoes, though, people discredit it, (and there's very good reasons people dispute this) at least the shoes float. (Source)

[mechana2015]

I recall watching HouseholdHacker do a similar project for hover shoes, though, people discredit it, (and there's very good reasons people dispute this) at least the shoes float. (Source)

Wow that is incredibly unrealistic... laughably so.

An electromagnet with 50 pounds of lift would do some INCREDIBLY unsafe things the moment it was powered in proximity to a similarly powered magnet, and man alive would hot glue not be capable of keeping those things in place. Anyone who's handled magnets will be hammering their heads on a desk when they realize anyone thinks that's real.

I've worked with very small neodymium magnets that top out at less than a pound of supporting ability and the fields on said magnets have been capable of pulling them across the table from several inches away. Multiplied by 50+ (and I am generalizing here, not doing the math for the scale of the electromagnetic field and force, if you feel like doing the physics to disprove this be my guest) said magnets could attract from many feet away. To each other. Given that magnetic fields are not straight lines up and down from a magnet but actually have a round field that varies on the poles (and a shockingly small neutral zone), stability is an incredibly difficult thing to achieve with two magnets in close proximity.

So what would happen in reality?
0. Absolute best case, guy falls on his rear because you can't balance a magnetic field like that. Nothing else happens.
1. Best case scenario, they all rip off the shoes, tear out the wires and become inert. Possibly while wiping your credit cards of their data as you fall on a mass of magnets before they all deactivate.
2. Worst case scenario, the fields are aligned by a minor slip of a foot and the magnets on one shoe are yanked over the other magnets, with foot still attached and sandwich a foot between 4 strong magnets. A demonstration of what this could feel like involves dropping a 100# metal plate on your foot. I don't advise that.

Oh and by the way, to get lift with a magnet, the object you're pushing off of must be magnetized with an opposing field as well. A metal beam in your house will be, quite deliberately NOT MAGNETIZED as it would wreck havoc on things like the computer in your car... the wiring in your house... etc. So presuming these could generate the 50# of force as stated, they wouldn't make you float. They'd bond you to the beam. With 100 pounds of combined force per leg. Until you turned them off. Even if it was you'd have a vaguely 50% chance of it aligning to your shoes if you didn't calculate the field before hand.

So no... the shoes don't float.

[Rewin]

So what would happen in reality?
0. Absolute best case, guy falls on his rear because you can't balance a magnetic field like that. Nothing else happens.
1. Best case scenario, they all rip off the shoes, tear out the wires and become inert. Possibly while wiping your credit cards of their data as you fall on a mass of magnets before they all deactivate.
2. Worst case scenario, the fields are aligned by a minor slip of a foot and the magnets on one shoe are yanked over the other magnets, with foot still attached and sandwich a foot between 4 strong magnets. A demonstration of what this could feel like involves dropping a 100# metal plate on your foot. I don't advise that.

You forgot the really worstest case scenario where both shoes attract to objects in the opposite direction of each other, thus forcing the man to do the splits with 50 lbs of force pulling all the while.

[mechana2015]

You forgot the really worstest case scenario where both shoes attract to objects in the opposite direction of each other, thus forcing the man to do the splits with 50 lbs of force pulling all the while.

>.< Yes I did forget that... I can just see the headline.
'Fire department rescues man magnetized to car and tool chest, was held in splits position for 3 hours. Man claimed he was trying to make magnetic hover shoes. Firefighter hospitalized after cracking a rib laughing.'

[SilverToast]

It would be nice to have some device to make things hover. I would love to have a floating surface to put a glass of water on or other things I don't have space for.
A hover board could be made in the future with creative thinking and exploration of all possible solutions instead of just focusing on magnets to make something float.