In 1989, “Back to the Future 2” was released in theaters. From that day on, people had become enamored with the idea of a hover board. A form of transportation that didn’t require the use of wheels. One that did not have the problems of traveling over various types of surfaces. Whether it was grass, dirt, concrete, or water. The hover board would move as long as there was enough momentum and a way for the person to push the board forward.
In the 27 years since the movie, many people have tried to build the fabled hover board. From just regular people in their garage, to engineers at some of the largest companies in the world. Dustin Rubio, who as a teenager had seen the movie, created a hover craft that his daughters use to play in their driveway. It consisted of a leaf blower, some plywood, plastics, and duct tape.
While, this didn’t really constitute the idea of what a hover board was, it was amazing for an everyday electrician to create it in his garage with items that almost every homeowner has laying around their garage. The writer of the “Back to the Future” trilogy, Bob Gale, stated that he imagines “the hover board floats on a magnetic field similar to magnetic levitation trains.” (Dougherty, 2014)
But in reality, this is a difficult notion due to something called “Earnshaw’s Theorem,” which states, a collection of electric charges or magnetic dipoles cannot be maintained in a stable stationary equilibrium condition by the application of static fields alone. Simply meaning, that opposing magnets are tough to balance.
In March 2014, comedy website “Funny Or Die” created a fake promotional video of a hover board, created by a company called “HUVr.” The video begins with actor Christopher Lloyd, who plays the character of “Doc Brown” the man who creates the time travelling DeLorean in the “Back to the Future” trilogy, talking about the history of the hover board. He brings a prototype of the “HUVr” hover board to skate board legend Tony Hawk who tests out the board. The dreams of many adults who grew up in the late 80’s had been achieved. Or so they thought. A few days later, after the internet blood hounds were released, it was found that the video was a fake. The dreams of millions were dashed.
17 Months later, Lexus had revealed that it had been working on a hover board that relied the use of magnetic levitation. The Lexus model uses magnets and a superconductor to keep the board in the air. This relies on the “Meissner Effect”, which states 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. You create current, but since it’s a superconductor, the currents don’t die away. So you don’t need oscillating magnetic fields. You can have a magnet that levitates above a superconductor or vice versa, a superconductor that levitates above a magnet.” (Barrett, 2015)
This works on the same technology that the Maglev trains use. These are the transit systems most famously used in Japan, China, and parts of Europe. The trains are able to travel at very high speeds upwards to 270 mph.
Inside the board, there is liquid nitrogen. This helps cool the superconductors down below their transition temperature, which is a frosty -321 degrees Fahrenheit. The liquid nitrogen does need to be refilled occasionally. As it does run out, and when that happens, the board stops hovering. But, it is a cheap material to use.
Unfortunately, because of the technology needed being a superconductor and magnets. The board cannot levitate over concrete. The path is also predetermined by a magnet rail underneath the surface. This limits the uses of the hover board currently, but it shows that there is a future in the technology beyond just for skateboarders and children of the 80’s who grew up dreaming of a prop in a film becoming reality.
One of the other applications that this can be used for is transportation in warehouses of heavy items without the use of heavy machinery. 1 or 2 workers can carefully move the items along the track from one point to another. Or robots along a manufacturing plant could travel along predetermined paths to go from job to job.
Then there is Arx Pax, and the idea of the “Hendo Board.” This small startup has patented “Magnetic Field Architecture.” This is based on “Lenz’s Law.” Which states, states that if you move a magnetic field relative to a conductor, you generate an eddy current in that conductor. The company believes this is a more efficient way of transmitting electromagnetic energy. Their board uses four downward firing disc-shaped “hover engines” which forces an opposing magnetic field in a special surface. Arx Pax CEO George Henderson says “Our hover engine is over a conductive surface, which can be many different substances, and it generates a primary magnetic field. That field creates the eddy currents in the surface, and then the eddy current, following Lenz’s Law again, generates a secondary magnetic field. That mirrors the primary magnetic field. And just like two north poles of two different magnets, they repel one another. That generates lift.” (Micallef, 2015) Arx Pax had started a Kickstarter to help fund the project, and have been able to raise over $500k in funding for development.
The hover board is more of a promotional tool to help the greater social cause. Arx Pax is looking for uses beyond the board, and is looking for this technology to protect structures or equipment from earthquakes and floods. While they realize that they won’t be able to throw skyscrapers on levitating platforms anytime soon, they do believe that there is a future where their technology can change the world.
Since 1989, the hover board had always been seen as a pipe dream among the general public. But over the past few years, the technology for such has boomed. It’s no longer a pipe dream, and the technology behind it can possibly change our lives for the best. A world where people don’t live in fear of their property being destroyed in an earthquake or a flood. A safer world.

References
Barrett, B. (2015, June 26). CondeNast. Retrieved from Wired: http://www.wired.com/2015/06/lexus-hoverboard-slide/
Dougherty, C. (2014, October 21). Hoverboard? Still In The Future. New York Times, p. A1.
Micallef, K. (2015, June 1). LineShapeSpace. Retrieved from How Magnetic Field Architecture Can Levitate Buildings: 2015