Science Fair Hoverboard

[Owwen]

I am a ninth grader at The Galloway School and for my science fair project this year have chosen to create a better hoverboard. The Lexus hoverboard intrigued me and I thought that I (or someone else) could make it better if it didn't have to use a track. This is my plan:

1. Design Problem:
   One paragraph describing the problem
   a) what is the problem you are trying to solve or thing you are trying to improve
   b) why you chose it/why does anyone care/how is it relevant to real life
   You must have at least one parenthetical reference to your research here or in #5 Design Brief.

I am trying to improve the Lexus hoverboard. The Lexus hoverboard is a board like a skateboard that has superconductors inside (instead of wheels) in order to float above a magnetic track (Stout annotated source 1). I was really interested in this last year in science and was thinking how I could improve it when I thought that the major limitation to the design was the fact that it couldn’t go anywhere without a magnetic track already placed down. This got me thinking about how I could fix that and that is how I came up with my plan.

2. Design brief:
   In a paragraph, give an overview of what you plan to do to solve the problem.
   Are there reasons for the way you plan to do it?
   You must have at least one parenthetical reference to your research here or in #4 Design Problem.

Because there has to be a track for the Lexus Hoverboard to work I propose to create a similar hoverboard to the Lexus, but with one major difference. Instead of the grounded (meaning that the whole hoverboard mechanism isn’t all off the ground) magnetic track I will put a dynamo, a device that creates a magnetic field, above the board. This dynamo will repel the Earth’s magnetic field and cause the board to be attracted up to the dynamo and not down to the Earth’s core.

Do you think this could work?

If so, would you be willing to be an adult collaborator on it?

Thank you!

[Bender]

No.

 

1) The Earth's magnetic field is barely strong enough to turn a nearly frictionless needle.

2) The board will pull the dynamo down with an equal force, so the net upward force would be zero.