Origination

A Floating board is a levitating board, first described by the author Michael Kennedy Joseph in his novel ‘The hole in the zero’ in the year 1967. The board became popular after being used in the ‘back to the future’ film franchise. Since then it has been used in many famous films like ‘The transformers’, ‘Fantastic four: The rise of the silver surfer’ etc. The general appearance of the floating board is a skateboard without wheels.

this 8 inch board with bluetooth.

Early Creations 

Floating board named as ‘Air board’ was unveiled in 2000 summer Olympics opening in Sydney. The air board, created by arbor tech industries, did not look anything like the traditional floating board.

In 2005 Jason Bradbury created a floating board using a wooden board that was levitated by a leaf blower. This floating board could not be steered or propelled. So Jason created another kind of floating board in the year 2009. Unlike the one in the year 2005, this new floating board was propelled by a small jet engine and additionally it was powered by two leaf blowers.

In 2011, French artist nil Guadagno created a floating board that hovers by magnetic repulsion, but it cannot carry any load. The floating board contained a laser system for stabilization and an electromagnetic system for levitating.

Fiction to Reality

In the month of October of the year 2014, American inventor Greg Henderson created a floating board working on the magnetic levitation principle. The floating board required a surface of a non-ferromagnetic material such as copper or aluminum to function. The floating board can carry up to 140 kg, can fly 2.5cm above the ground. Four engines were created to power this 8 inch board with bluetooth. Additional features like thrust and spin were inbuilt which were under the user’s control. The floating board was priced at 10,000$ for first ten boards. Greg Henderson created these floating boards to bring attention to his company Arpax labs. The floating board was thus an example of what could be done with the magnetic levitation technology.

Guinness World Record

In may 2015, Romanian-born Canadian Catalin Alexandru duru created a floating board. Catalin took a year to build the propeller powered floating board. He set a Guinness world record by flying over a distance 275.9m at a height of 16ft over the lake ouareau in Canada.

On April 30, 2016, Guinness world record was broken in France with a new record of 2,252.4m. The floating board was named ‘The flyboard air’ which used jet engine propulsions.

Floating boards which are financially and economically viable are yet to be created but with the advent of new technologies, floating boards can be expected in the near future.