ON THE HENDO HOVERBOARD: How it works and demonstration

This is to address a lot of the excitement and mystery concerning the recently announced Hendo Hoverboard.

The hoverboard employs “magnetic thrusters” to “levitate” off the ground. These thrusters are special, because they use solid state magnets, and NOT electromagnets. The magnets are embedded in a disk which rotates at high speed over a conductive non-ferromagnetic surface (like aluminum or copper). This rotating magnet array generates a current in the metal, and the current generates an opposing magnetic field which repels the disk of magnets. The actual Hendo Hoverboard uses 4 of these “magnetic thrusters” to provide a stable platform capable of lifting a human.

Hendo Hoverboard Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/142464853/hendo-hoverboards-worlds-first-real-hoverboard

Patent: http://www.google.com/patents/US20140265690

Wired Article: http://www.wired.com/2014/10/physics-hendo-hoverboard/

I realize this is not like many of my normal videos, but being the intelligent and curious people that you are, I figured you might enjoy this.

source