Anyone who saw Back to the Future II was disappointed when 2015 rolled around with nary a hoverboard in sight. There have been various attempts to fake it, but none of them quite have the feel of floating about wherever you’d like to go that the movie conveys. The little-known YouTuber [Colin Furze] has a new take on the idea: use magnets. Really big magnets.
If you’re one of [Colin]’s handful of subscribers, then you probably saw his magnetic-suspension bike. We passed on that one, but we couldn’t resist the urge to cover the hoverboard version, regardless of how popular [Colin] might be on YouTube. It’s actually stupidly simple: the suspension is provided by the repulsive force between alarmingly large neodymium magnets. In this case, two are on the base plate that holds the skateboard ‘trucks’, and two are on the wooden ‘deck’ that [Colin] rides upon.
Of course magnetic repulsion is a very unstable equilibrium, so [Colin] had to reduce the degrees of freedom. In his first test, that was with a pair of rods and linear bearings. That way the deck could only move in the z-axis, providing the sensation of hovering without allowing the deck to slide off its magnetic perch. Unfortunately those pins transferred too much vibration from the ground into the deck, ruining the illusion of floating on air.
After realizing that he’d never be able to ollie (jump) this massive beast of a skateboard, [Colin] decides he might as well use a longboard instead. Longboards, as the name implies, are long skateboards, and are for transportation, not tricks. The longboard gets the same massive magnets, but after a couple of iterations to find a smoother solution — including a neat but unsuccessful tensegrity-inspired version — ends up with a pair of loosely-fitted pins once again, though relocated to the rear of the board. From the rider’s perspective, it looks exactly like a hoverboard, since you can’t see underneath from that angle. According to [Colin], it feels like a hoverboard, too.
The only way to do better would be with eddy currents over copper, or superconductors over a magnetic track, but both of those methods limit you to very specific locations. This might be a bit of a fakeout, but its one with a degree of freedom. One, to be specific. You have to admit, it’s still less of a fake than the handle-less Segway we got in 2015, at least.
Magnets! How do they work?
See, relativistic electron orbits.
And I don’t wanna talk to a scientist
Y’all be lyin’, gettin’ me pissed.
ask ICP
The insane clown posse?
Insane Clown Posse – Miracles – @~1:52
Remember that we’ve been told that when magnets get wet they don’t work any more. So this hack would be dangerous in the rain. Everything would quit working at the absolute worst possible time. :-p :-D
There’s a safety tie for that
You know that’s not true, right?
Perhaps a simple set of springs would have achieved the same goal and would prevent picking up all sorts of metal debris during a ride. Springs would also prevent hurting yourself when you accidentally flip the magnets during assembly of the board, you know when one magnet snaps against the other magnet… but your still holding one of the magnets… ouch.
springs dont get mad youtube clicks.
If you watched the video, you would have know that he mentions this and that he mentions springs do feel different from magnets.
And this is Colin Furze, of course it’s 80% silly, “pointless” and dangerous. That’s why we like it.
Only 80%? and indeed… that’s the whole point. 👍
Absolutely right. And that’s why we like it. And don’t get me wrong, I do like it.
Springs are still attached. Magnets let you hover. Colin wears his safety tie so don’t worry.
Magnets have a different response curve. I believe the force of a spring is linear with displacement, but a magnet’s force should be quadratic.
It must suck being such a small youtuber, with just a handful of followers. I mean, if he really tries hard, and keeps up with it… maybe someday he’ll have a dozen million followers. Cough.
Cringe post from collins alts. Or even worse… Stans.
Nice to see HaD supporting these up-and-coming YT channels. Excuse me while I head down to my bunker to watch this again…
Oh, isn’t that cute!
I think he was on the right track with the hinges, but he should have done separate Sarrus linkages for each end, constraining the magnets specifically, with the board possibly mounted with springs or rubber bushings for a little more front/back and side/side tilting freedom.
You know hoverboards don’t exist right? Looks like it’s attached to the actual board at the rear (I don’t watch the videos).
It’s almost like the video and article specifically call it “Magnetic Suspension”…
You say you didn’t watch the video (me either).
But you also didn’t read the article.
Heck, you didn’t even read the TITLE of the article.
Why are you here?
GTF out FT reader.
We don’t like your kind!
This might be a better way to film some flatter model spaceships