Twenty-five years after ‘Back to the Future’ convinced an entire generation that we’d soon be able to zoom around the city on wheel-less floating skateboards, it looks like we might finally get our wish: a working hoverboard actually exists. The Hendo Hoverboard, currently blazing past its funding goals on Kickstarter, features four disc-shaped hover engines that create a magnetic field to levitate the board off the ground.
Naturally, there’s a catch: it only works on certain metallic surfaces. The creators are currently using non-ferromagnetic conductor sheet metal, but are working on new compounds that could increase performance while minimizing cost. The magnetic field created by the board levitates it an inch above the ground, offering an ultra-smooth ride that you just can’t get on wheels.
“While one day we expect to have hoverboards that can effortlessly float over any medium (even water!), our current technology requires special types of surfaces,” says Hendo. “Therefore, we need a hoverpark to go with our boards, and have been busy designing a park befitting the awesomeness of our technology.”
In addition to snagging a ‘Whitebox’ developer kit that enables you to play around with the technology yourself, Kickstarter rewards include reserving a brick-sized piece of the eventual Hoverpark with your name engraved onto it. The first 10 production Hendo Hoverboards have already been snagged at $10,000 each.
After all the hoaxes, it’s understandable that people are skeptical – but Gizmodo got to actually give it a try, confirming that it works. Check it out in the video above, and get all the technical details at Kickstarter.
