Awesome Hoverboards

This science fiction short film tells an original story while demonstrating what’s possible with state-of-the-art computer graphics. Oscar-winning VFX artist Tim Webber of Framestore used Unreal Engine to create FLITE, which follows the story of a woman imprisoned in her hi-rise apartment building and the stranger who helps her make a daring escape from the tower.

Electric vehicles are gradually getting less expensive, but they’re still not exactly cheap. That didn’t stop Joel Creates from owning an EV. Only for his hacked-together “world’s cheapest Tesla,” he put a 1991 VW Golf on top of wheel dollies and four self-balancing hoverboards. Then, he doubled down and turned it into an all-wheel drive with 2x more motors.

No matter how much we’ve wanted one, Mattel never made a real-world Hoverboard like the one in Back to the Future II. JLaserVideo built a working hoverboard that can float a couple of inches off the ground. After exploring various kinds of levitation technology and their limitations, he settled on a design that works like an upside-down air hockey table.

While so-called hoverboards don’t hover how we want them to, they’re still fun to ride. James Bruton thought he could make something more interesting than an off-the-shelf balance board. So he got to work making a hoverboard with 3D-printed omni-wheels. His chunky machine is built for a seated rider, and he plans to upgrade it to make it more agile.

We’ve seen how circular saw blades can be used to provide traction on ice – at least until they cut all the way through. The Q modified one of those wheeled “hoverboards” to ride on saw blades. He added metal plates to each of the blades’ teeth so it doesn’t dig in as much, but we still wouldn’t want to fall onto them.

A few years back, Lexus created a working prototype of a Hoverboard. But it required a special supercooled track. Hacksmith Industries worked with engineer Jimmy Zhou to create a version that uses rapidly-spinning magnets. Plus it looks like the board that Marty McFly rode in the movie. Check out part one of the build here.