The Slide (stylized SLIDE) is a
magnetically levitating hoverboard demonstration developed by
Lexus,
who built a skate park in
Barcelona, Spain specifically for the project. The system was built as a promotional demonstration and was not on sale to the public.
Conception
The overall project took about 57 weeks to complete.
The SLIDE was teased in June 2015 and was officially revealed 5 August of the same year. Dietmar Berger, a magnetic levitation engineer, and Ludwig Schultz, an engineer of
superconducting levitation, were mostly responsible for the design of the system.
Ross McGouran was the main rider for both prototype testing and promotional demonstration.
Technology
The main focus of the demonstration is the levitation of the hoverboard, which was achieved through the use of superconductors inside the board and a magnetic track. The board itself was made of
bamboo
Bamboos are a diverse group of mostly evergreen perennial plant, perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily (biology), subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family, in th ...
and
carbon fibre
Carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (American English), carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers ( Commonwealth English), carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics, carbon-fiber reinforced-thermoplastic (CFRP, CRP, CFRTP), also known as carbon fiber, carbon comp ...
support structures. The board had 32
yttrium barium copper oxide superconductors cooled by
liquid nitrogen
Liquid nitrogen (LN2) is nitrogen in a liquid state at cryogenics, low temperature. Liquid nitrogen has a boiling point of about . It is produced industrially by fractional distillation of liquid air. It is a colorless, mobile liquid whose vis ...
.
Superconductors are
conductors that have no
internal resistance as long as they are kept below a certain temperature based on the particular material.
When a metal has no internal resistance, a
current running through the metal will run forever without a power source. When a superconductor is subjected to a
magnetic field
A magnetic field (sometimes called B-field) is a physical field that describes the magnetic influence on moving electric charges, electric currents, and magnetic materials. A moving charge in a magnetic field experiences a force perpendicular ...
, the superconductor aligns itself with the magnetic field and can remain in a fixed position above it.
In order to maintain the required temperature, this system uses liquid nitrogen to cool it down to .
Because of the
transfer of heat energy from the magnets to the liquid nitrogen, the nitrogen boils and eventually evaporates away.
This makes it difficult to have a constant supply of liquid nitrogen to continually cool down the superconductors, and the system can only operate for an average time of about 20 minutes on maximum liquid nitrogen onboard capacity.
Track
The track built by Lexus for the SLIDE project is in
Cubelles,
Barcelona, Spain.
[{{Cite web, url=https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2015/6/25/8846785/lexus-hoverboard-skatepark-its-real-not-a-drill, title = This is the skatepark Lexus built for its real hoverboard, date = 25 June 2015] The entire skate park has magnetic tracks concealed beneath a thin layer of wood. The magnetic track pulls the board along the path.
All the uphill and downhill slopes of the track were specifically designed to ensure the magnetic field has enough
momentum
In Newtonian mechanics, momentum (: momenta or momentums; more specifically linear momentum or translational momentum) is the product of the mass and velocity of an object. It is a vector quantity, possessing a magnitude and a direction. ...
to maintain the board's movement.
References
External links
Lexus SLIDE Official VideoLexus SLIDE Official Page
Lexus
Maglev
Skateboards