The fubiz.net website says that there is an array of electromagnets in the base so your probably correct with your guess

I want to know how the lasers come into play. Time-of-flight distancing seems impractical and expensive for something so precise. Maybe the beam is on an angle and distance is measured by optically sensing where on the board the beam hits like some of the cheap golf rangefinders.

before i clicked on this i was genuinely excited with the header… im am sadly let down :(

Is it just me or do “artists” usually do original things rather than taking stuff from movies?

@ nemo
Anti-gravity.

Just so you know, that’s a biggie.

I love it when artists start tinkering around with technology.

Sometimes it results in fantastic art. I mean, would
you rather see paintings of fruit or this kind of
thing in your local art museum? (Both I say.)

Ad to everyone saying it’s a trivial project, let’s
see yours.

I tried to make an inverted pendulum since it’s so easy, and I got it to work. I was
surprised how hard it was to get it mostly working, and so now I’m building a better
mechanical system and I’m trying again.

Everything’s trivial until you try it, and the
negative people always want to sound smarter
than they are by putting down accomplishments by
others.

Oh hey, I DID manage to get a stirling engine
running after trying for 3 years or so! That was
also a “trivial” accomplishment according to
others.

i recall reading somewhere that in theory a cylindrical magnetic “force field” could be inflated with air or another gas to form a gas filled balloon between the hoverboard and ground.

this might just lift its own weight, but the argon cylinder, HV power supply and confinement magnets would be pretty heavy.

A tethered version of this might work though.

combine with some sort of advanced battery that could store 1 MWh worth of power and it would probably be self contained.

“but this is particularly stable”

yes it is as it sits there undisturbed

@zeropointmodule

The physics of electromagnetic flux is a bit beyond me, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work like that.

Typically, you need either a ferroid or an electric current to have an effect on a magnetic field, and if you’re trying to rest something atop the field, it would be easier to manipulate the shape of the field using coil structure and signal adjustment than pushing on it with gaseous matter.

@Einomies Do the kids’ Stirling engines run off
a 25 Watt ilghtbulb like mine?

You’re a prefect example of what I’m talking about.
You’re putting my results down based on what you
you know about something.

Where’s yours?

It might be the case that a full on “Back to the Future” style hoverboard might not be feasible at this time, but I imagine that you might still be able to build something that runs on a rail system, basically creating a smaller scale version of a bullet train.

What kills me about some of our nay sayers, is that they tell you how trivial, and how anyone can do this, and how this is stupid. Yet, you can barely read what they say, it is often like looking at someone typing with their foreheads. “This is be so stoopid, I r much smrartar and teh best at what me do!” You sound like a caveman.

If you have to tell us how stupid something is, first use a spell check, and maybe read it to yourself before hitting the Submit Comment button. You might also want to experiment in the vast technical field known as “punctuation.” Learn what words to capitalize. We know you can drag wood, but do you know how to spell it? Make an attempt to sound like the smart genius you are. Right now, you sound like you could not make a hammer hit a nail. There is no way that you are going to convince me you know anything at all until you at least sound like you are not going to school on a short bus.

Just an asthetic thing I’ed like to see the hoverboard replaced with a model ship, I think it would be cool just to see a ship floating there.

@Daniel: Its isn’t as simple as gluing magnets, it would just flip over. My guess is that it has several electromagnets that change power to keep the board in balance, using the lasers to track displacement.

@greycode: Well said

> And to the billion and one people who keep saying “Well if it’s so easy to do, build one
> yourself!”… why would I do that? Since when has identifying something as being
> easy required proof by actually doing it?

(IMO)
It is not the identification that is the problem, but the incessant posting of “/Solving world hunger/ -oh that’s easy, come back when you actually have aquired some skills why don’t you.”
that people get tired of.

@NatureTM there are different ways than TOF for shorter-ranged applications. Do some research (it’s been a while, but the phrase “Phase Difference” comes to mind).

That’s cool though, would go perfect in any Back To The Future fan.

Not really a hack but still cool.

Would have been interesting to see him poke it from the side rather than hitting the top.

er interferometry that is.

ps: ‘het is me wat’ is from 1999.

@Scatterplot Thank You and to everyone else im sorry that i dont care how i type they are just words no matter how there put together i may not be able to talk the talk but most who can dont have what they say they do money holds me back you can say im stupid dumb whatever the fact of the matter is i got IT I know i do and anyone i know can tell you the same thing it is trivial if i had the capital id show you what a real hoverboard is one day youll see

@Daniel If you want money, you will have to learn how to speak the speak and write the write. No one is going to look at a sales brochure with your writing skills and say, “That man needs my million dollars.” Not speaking the language, or writing it correctly will permanently translate whatever you want to communicate into “Want fries with dat? You should try and learn it for your own good. No matter what your white paper says, you could very well have the cure for cancer, will be read if it looks like you could have been typing with two ball peen hammers.

@Greycode I Aint Askin For Money Why YOu GottaBe Such A Hater Ill Type How I Want Deal And Anyway Who SAys Im GonnaBe Writhing The Brochure i Got People TO Do that For Me

Voting @Daniel troll of the month.

Yeah for anyone still interested on the types of laser rangefinding techniques, the Wikipedia article lists:

Technologies

Time of flight – this measures the time taken for a light pulse to travel to the target and back. With the speed of light known, and an accurate measurement of the time taken, the distance can be calculated. Many pulses are fired sequentially and the average response is most commonly used. This technique requires very accurate sub-nanosecond timing circuitry.

Multiple frequency phase-shift – this measures the phase shift of multiple frequencies on reflection then solves some simultaneous equations to give a final measure.

Interferometry – the most accurate and most useful technique for measuring changes in distance rather than absolute distances.

from:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_rangefinder

not an installation.
(echoes the classic “not a hack” comment.)

the word installation is misused constantly.

a super simple and complete definition of installation art can be found on wikipedia:

“Installation art describes an artistic genre of site-specific, three-dimensional works designed to transform the perception of a space.”

while it holds three dimensions, it is not site specific and more importantly it does not transform space at all.

wouldn’t it sound funny to an EE if i kept saying capacitor when what i was clearly referring to a resistor?

yeah, its like that.

I enjoyed this post. Fun and light-hearted. Makes me want to have (maybe build) this piece in my home.

wat’s so rad about magnet repulsion? it’s two magnets that repel each other, nobody’ll be satisfied until they smash their face on a real hoverboard!

then again, i was reading somewhere about “optical tweezers” ..

seems that if a way could be found to make a sufficiently homogenous circular laser beam around the area of the base, if the space was filled with relatively small electrically charged particles (aka dust) the repulsive forces between the particles could levitate the board.

no magnetic fields required at all, just a very powerful red laser array and a high voltage supply.

in this case action-reaction forces make it work, the laser beams act as a potential gradient and “force” the particles to do work.