Riding The Hoverboard In Back To The Future

Calling all Marty McFly wannabes, there’s a real hoverboard hitting the crowdfunding scene in hopes of going into production. The Hendo Hoverboard is currently raising funds on Kickstarter Inc., looking to make all our McFly dreams come true.

But what exactly is a hoverboard? The “Back to the Future” movie franchise that made hoverboards famous depicts a skateboard-like contraption sans wheels, able to hover over the ground or water. While the exact mechanism underlying this sci-fi version of a hoverboard is vague, Bob Gale, the writer for the Back to the Future trilogy, imagined that the hoverboard floats on a magnetic field comparable to magnetic levitation trains.

Others define hoverboards as a sort of vehicle that uses air to get it off the ground, but some argue that those are hovercrafts.

GigaOM writer Signe Brewster and Engadget writer Sean Buckley both got to try out the Hendo Hoverboard.

Brewster described the contraption as a “doublewide snowboard” and added that “It felt as if I was standing on a giant air hockey puck hovering three quarters of an inch above the ground.” As for Buckley’s experience, he stated that though the experience was a lot of fun, “ The Hendo hoverboard doesn’t ride at all like McFly’s flying skateboard. In fact, without a propulsion system, it tends to drift aimlessly.”

The Hendo Hoverboard currently only works on non-ferrous surface such as aluminum and copper and is only about an inch off the ground, far from the the scene depicted in “Back to the Future” where it was hovering over various types of surfaces at a much greater distance.

As stated earlier, the Hendo Hoverboard is slated to start shipping in October 2015, quite a timely release since McFly rode his board at about the same year in the movie.

For those who can’t afford Hendo’s $10,000 price tag, Arx Pax, the company behind this technology, offers a Whitebox Developer Kit for pledges $299 or more. The Whitebox developer kits comes with the Hendo hover engine set and enough surface for the little hovering contraption to float around.

Since the Hendo Hoverboard isn’t coming out until next year, here are some cool videos to keep you inspired.

Our favorite hoverboard movie clips

Back to the Future II

The famous Marty McFly hoverboard chase scene:

Doom Runners

This 1998 TV movie from Nickelodeon features hoverboards with sails:

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Highlander II: The Quickening

Connor MacLeod uses a hoverboard, which looks like two paddles that strap to each foot connected by two bars, to escape a flying henchman out to kill him.

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