#HOVER BOARD FULL VERSION#

As the name implies, it’s a board that hovers - crazy, I know. The only thing he really needs people to remember, after all, is Lexus.ADVERTISEMENT What a hoverboard is and how it became popular?Ī hoverboard is basically a skateboard without tires that can fly above the ground while carrying a person on it. 'Will they remember the hoverboard more than the car that's going to be in ? That's a distinct possibility based on the reaction so far,' says Durand, who doesn't seem especially concerned. The intense interest has seemingly put Lexus in the slightly disjointed position of both basking in the viral glow (it's by far the most popular entry in this particular marketing series) and dampening expectations (no, they're not selling this, but can we interest you in a car?).

#HOVER BOARD FULL VERSION#

In short, it may be the first functional hoverboard whose form lives up to-or even outshines-its function.Īs for when we'll actually see SLIDE in action, maybe just in the full version of the ad? That could be anywhere from several more weeks to a couple of months. 'I don't know how many hoverboards were built to feature in a global ad campaign,' Durand explains, noting that SLIDE takes several design cues, like bamboo finish and carbon fiber touches, from the Lexus automobiles it's helping promote. That makes sense, says Durand, not only because of who made it but what it was made for. More important than that, though, might be that where previous working hoverboards have looked like something out of a poorly sweded version of Tron, the Lexus take looks downright luxury-grade. There's the use of not-quite-concrete, for one, which gives the false, aspirational impression that you can take this hoverboard with you anywhere you go. 'īut while it's true that the Lexus hoverboard doesn't represent any scientific breakthroughs, it's perhaps not a total shock that it captured so many hearts and views. 'Let's be frank, it's not novel,' says Durand. As it turns out, for all the anguish and anticipation around making hoverboards real, they have existed for some time. He would know while he hasn't ridden the Lexus hoverboard, he's spent time on a similar contraption in a lab. When you apply the same principles to a human-bearing board, 'it really is like you're floating.' That's why it can't be pure concrete in the video there has to be something magnetic there as well. 'There's interaction between the superconductor and the magnet that repels the force of gravity and allows the thing to levitate,' Norman says. Here's one last barebones, layman's definition that might help, compliments of Norman. When the liquid nitrogen runs out, the superconductors warm up and the hoverboard stops, well, hovering, until you top it off again. 'That sounds very cold,' Palm explains, 'but liquid nitrogen is actually a byproduct of the steel industry, so it's pretty inexpensive.' It's the same principle as the dry ice you played with in AP Chemistry, just around three times as cold. Just how cold are we talking? -321 degrees Farenheit, says Palm, who also cautions that it's not quite as extreme as it sounds. That's liquid nitrogen, cooling the superconductors below their transition temperature-the temp at which it becomes superconducting. This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.Īs for the wisps of smoke you see rising from the sides of the Lexus board? That's not just for effect (although as effects go, it ain't bad). Or better yet, watch this video, recommended by Norman, of a superconductor locked in a magnetic field: If that all sounds a little technical, try to picture a maglev train, which relies on similar principles to achieve speeds of, in the case of Shanghai's Transrapid, over 300mph. You can have a magnet that levitates above a superconductor or vice versa, a superconductor that levitates above a magnet.'

So you don't need oscillating magnetic fields. You create current, but since it's a superconductor, the currents don't die away. 'Instead you have something called the Meissner effect, which essentially says that when you take a magnetic field near the superconductor, it induces current in that superconductor, and creates essentially an image magnetic field on the other side of the superconductor. 'With a superconductor you don't need to have an oscillating magnetic field ,' explains Eric Palm, Deputy Laboratory Director at FSU's National High Magnetic Field Laboratory.

You can read about the physics behind the Hendo in great depth here, but the key difference between it and the Lexus project is that Lexus opted for a superconductor-which creates a different kind of magnetic field-instead of a plain ol' conductor. That may sound familiar to anyone who recalls the Hendo hoverboard, which debuted as a Kickstarter last fall.

Hover board