Awesome Stuff: Flying Cars, Hover Bikes And Ultrasonic Levitation
from the float-away,-float-away... dept
For this week's awesome stuff post about interesting crowdfunding projects, we've got three campaigns that have to do with... leaving the ground behind in some form or another. I'm not sure any of them are practical, but let's not let reality get in the way of fun ideas.- The OverDrive Flying Car
- Hoverbike
- Ultrasonic Levitation
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Filed Under: awesome stuff, crowdfunding, drones, flying cars, hover bikes, ultrasonic levitation
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There is barely a day that goes by where there isn't a car wreck somewhere along the path to or from work.
People can't help but get into accidents. Now imagine that at flying altitudes.
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If this scenario were replicated above our heads, much damage to person and property would ensue.
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As for the hoverboard; I'm surprised that nobody has tried to build a working version yet using magnetic levitation. Build an indoor arena with powerful electromagnets under the entire floor and build the boards with strong magnets in them. You switch on the electromagnets and the board levitates. Sure, it would be hard to balance on such a board, but skilled riders could probably adapt. I mean people can ride those crazy skateboards with just one wheel at each end and you can't even step onto those with it wanting to tip over. The big question is if it could be made powerful enough to levitate a person.
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Re: Moller International
http://www.moller.com
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Re: Why
I've looked into this. Batteries suck the proverbial monkey balls.
They just don't hold enough energy to keep something with any reasonable payload flying for more than about 15 minutes.
(45 minutes absolute tops if the payload is nothing but batteries).
Until batteries get a lot better, or there's another lightweight, high-power-density way of getting electricity, we aren't going to see practical person-carrying quadcopters.
(And, really, you want a lot more than 4 props in anything carrying a person - you want enough so the thing will keep flying if 1 or 2 of them breaks).
I'm hopeful about fuel cells, but then I've been hopeful about them for decades and still nothing much has happened.
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Flying/hovering car
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