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Published On: Tue, Sep 1st, 2015

Back to the Future with the Hendo Hover Board

The 1989 movie Back to the Future II featured a young Micheal J. Fox as Marty McFly, zipping around a future city on a futuristic hover board. This device, a future rethink of the skateboard, took our imaginations to new heights as we hoped that imagination would converge with reality someday. That someday is today as Hendo Hover has recently launched a functioning hover board. The Hendo Hover Board may have been more than 25 years in the making but its introduction marks a viable transition between what we want to do and what we can accomplish.

The Hendo Hover Board is certainly stuff that dreams (even movie dreams) are made of. Here is some information about the history of this gadget, the technology that powers the Hendo Hover Board and the attention it is receiving from you and the media.

The Inspiration Behind the Hendo Hover Board

hoverboard-Back-To-The-FutureThe Hendo Hover Board is the brainchild of married couple and entrepreneurs Greg and Jill Henderson. Greg, an architect, who graduated from the United States Military Academy in West Point, NY and served as an Army Ranger, was not inspired merely by the feats of the fictional Marty McFly in the movie but rather a concept that occurred to him while designing multi-family housing complexes.

Henderson postulated that making large complexes float might be a way to avoid the severity of damages caused by California earthquakes. The couple sank their life savings into their venture, Arx Pax and worked on the technology that would soon lead to the development of the Hendo Hover Board. The name Hendo is a shortening of Greg’s last name, which served as his nickname while serving in the Rangers.

The Technology that Underlies the Hendo Hover Board

The technology is based on the use of electromagnetics. The technology, which Arx Pax terms “Magnetic Field Architect” or MFA is based on a disc that is the hover engines that fire downward against a magnetic field, which creates the hovering or levitation effect. The magnetic levitation (maglev) gives the Hendo Hover Board user flexibility in terms of movement, with no limitation on where or how the board turns. The only limitation is the need for a metallic or conductive surface in order for the hover engines to fire its magnetic force against in order to create the maglev effect. The principles that permit the Hendo Hover Board to move are based on Lenz’s Law.

What People are Saying About the Hendo Hover Board

The company launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise awareness of the Hendo Hover Board and find backers toward a $500,000 goal to bring the idea to production. The response was overwhelming as more than 3,000 backers contributed a total of $510,591, exceeding the amount desired to start full production of the Hendo Hover Board, with a planned release of October 2015. The October date happens to coincide with the date in Back to the Future II that Marty McFly traveled.

Media outlets like the New York Times and even professional skateboarder Tony Hawk have had an opportunity to see the prototype up close and personal and Hawk even tested the vehicle in Arx Pax’s specially designed skate park. All indications are that the Hendo Hover Board will be the next big thing, as not only a personal vehicle but also a potential solution with far-reaching implications for building and design.

Guest Author: Andrew Armstrong

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  1. Lexus is developing a hoverboard you can actually ride says:

    […] Back to the Future with the Hendo Hover Board […]

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