How To Make A Hoverboard That Flies

2015 was literally and figuratively the year of the hoverboard. While everyone was talking about the cocky-balancing scooters, two companies showed off skateboard-shaped boards that actually hovered a few inches above the Earth: Lexus with the "Slide" board, and Arx Pax with its second generation Hendo Hoverboard. Now, but days before the new year, some other company chosen ArcaSpace is taking a shot at making the mythical hoverboard.

ArcaSpace is primarily a private space company, and ane of the original 26 teams that competed in the Ansari X Prize competition in 2004. (It as well entered the Lunar X Prize competition, too, before pulling out in 2013.) Only early on this morning the company released a video that shows off the "ArcaBoard," a fan-powered rectangle that can lift a person off the ground by almost a foot.

Information technology doesn't expect easy to ride, but it definitely flies

The ArcaBoard gets its power — 430 pounds of thrust, or 272 horsepower, according to the company — from 36 electric fans. The company as well says its built in some self-balancing tech to make it fly smoothly. Beyond that, though, it doesn't look like there's much to the feel. Dumitru Popescu, ArcaSpace's CEO, is seen riding it in the video, but it doesn't look like he has much control over where information technology's going. It's actually pretty reminiscent of the Hendo Hoverboard videos — sure, information technology hovers, merely yous can't really steer it enough to e'er use it to get anywhere.

ArcaSpace isn't shy about its ambitions for the ArcaBoard on the company's website. "For the first fourth dimension since the wheel, auto or airplane, the ArcaBoard is a revolutionary quantum for transportation," it reads. "For the outset time, every person will be able to wing anytime, anywhere. The world, your world, will alter forever."

The accompanying video is also blindly serious, setting footage of the lath in action and graphics that testify how it was built against a backdrop of echoey piano. The company's public relations manager and primary operating officer both join Popescu in testifying about the revolutionary accomplishment.

The ArcaBoard is absurd, but don't expect to ride it

ArcaSpace's hoverboard appears to have petty purpose beyond marketing, much like the case was with Arx Pax and Lexus. The short video is too serious to exist taken seriously, and the $19,900 price tag is so high that you lot accept to wonder why they fifty-fifty bothered to listing it.

Popescu basically admits this by the end of the video. "I've always wanted to create a commercially available production for the masses," he says. "But the creation of this truly revolutionary product proves that Arca is not only able to create amazing technologies, just is actually engineering the hereafter."

At a very base level, what ArcaSpace has done hither is absurd. The visitor found a manner to make something you can telephone call a hoverboard with a level of legitimacy, and unlike Lexus or Arx Pax, it doesn't require a runway or special surface. The technological challenge of getting 36 fans to work in tandem without something going completely haywire is beauteous, also. But while this is the third working version we've seen this yr, it looks like the immediate future of the hoverboard is still grounded.

We rode the Lexus hoverboard in Spain It'due south kinda existent