So where does the HENDO hoverboard stand today? Well, about 1 inch off the ground. As you can see from the video above, the prototype is real and it works! But to see it hover in person, and better yet, to defy gravity by riding it, is something you need to experience as well.

With the support of the Kickstarter community, we all can. We need your help to put the finishing touches on the Hendo Hoverboard, to help us produce them, and to create places to ride them.

Our engineering team has been amazing, rapidly iterating on design after design. In fact, this our 18th prototype, and we continue to make advances week after week.

The hoverboard is simultaneously fascinating and exhilarating. The enabling technologies existed, but no one had yet been able to align them to bring a hoverboard forth. Hendo has done so, and our hoverboards are working in almost every way we could have imagined. But perfecting it will take a little more time and resources.

The magic behind the hoverboard lies in its four disc-shaped hover engines. These engines induce an opposing magnetic field in the surface substrate below that provides lift, levitating our board off the ground.

While our hoverboard is primarily intended to be self-propelled, the actions which stabilize it can also be used to drive it forward by altering the projected force on the surface underneath it.

Currently, this surface substrate needs to be a non-ferromagnetic conductor. Right now we use commonly available metals in simple sheets, but we are working on new compounds and new configurations to maximize our technology and minimize costs.

Until the hoverboard is within everyone’s reach, we are offering the same technology in a small, accessible form factor – the Whitebox™ Developer Kit.

SPECS: (Approximate)

• Dimensions: 10″ x 10″ x 5″ (25cm x 25cm x 12cm)
• Individual Engine Dimensions: 4.5″ diameter x 2″ high (11.5cm x 5cm)
• Hover Height: 1/4″ – 1/2″ (1cm – 1.5cm)
• Battery Life: 10-15 min
• Charge Time: 1-2 hrs
• Weight: 10-12 lbs (4.5 kg)
• Payload: ~ 5 lbs (3 kg)

We kept the Whitebox as simple and affordable as we could to get our technology out into as many hands as possible.

It is designed to be explored, taken apart, and analyzed, encouraging you to dare to wonder.

We want to see what YOU can do with our technology. You can use it for hovering, or for applications we haven’t even imagined.

The Whitebox+™ puts hover control and propulsion capabilities in your hands. It’s operated through your mobile device (iPhone/Android). This control functionality contains advanced technology and hardware, so it’s not designed so much with tinkering in mind. Powered by a set of rechargeable LiPo batteries, we integrate the charging system directly into the box. Right now we can give you 12-15 minutes of hover with a charge time of about 2 hours.

The Whitebox+™ has the ability to move forward and backward, left and right, and rotate around its axis. The app can even pre-program autonomous movements and “hover flight plans”. And what’s really cool – it can do a static start (that is, pop-up from a standstill when first turned on).

Feel like adding some extra visual oomph to the Whitebox? Check out these three new skins! More to follow, and if you have an idea for one let us know.

While one day we expect to have hoverboards that can effortlessly float over any medium (even water!), our current technology requires special types of surfaces.

Therefore, we need a hoverpark to go with our boards, and we have been busy designing a park befitting the awesomeness of our technology.

Hendo is driven by our supporters, backers, and collaborators that want to see a hoverpark come to life. So we’re giving everyone an opportunity to be a part of the hoverpark by claiming a brick-sized piece of its surface.

When you reserve a brick we’ll engrave your name on it and place it on our hoverpark surface.  And on opening day you will see your name permanently etched into history, in the world’s first hoverpark.

 “What we back today, echoes in eternity” – Maximus Kickstartus Magnetus

Ok, so you can’t shred a halfpipe with one of these, but you can still show your support for Hendo with one of our Betaboards instead. The Betaboard is a smaller version of our hoverboard that floats on a magnetic base. It uses a a different type of levitation than our technology, based on electromagnetic stabilization.  It cannot be moved around too quickly and needs to stay plugged in, but it’s perfect for any desk and makes a great gift!

(In theory, the Betaboard should float forever, as long as it’s plugged in and not disturbed too much. It holds about 8 ounces/200g.)

Levitation using magnets seems simple – just put one magnet over another, same poles facing, and the top one will float. Voila, right?  Sadly, as we all find out (usually as heartbroken little kids) this never works. Due to something called Earnshaw’s Theorem, a stable static equilibrium between two magnets is impossible. There have been a number of ways around this, but none have proven feasible enough for everyday applications. Until now.

Lenz’s law explains how eddy currents are created when magnets are moved relative to a conductive material.  These eddy currents in turn create an opposing magnetic field in the conductor.  Our core technology, which we call Magnetic Field Architecture (MFA™), focuses this field more efficiently.

You can go ahead and google both of these scientific principles, but to sum it up in regards to levitation: Lenz = Easy, Earnshaw = Hard.

The Hendo Hoverboard is a first-step product, a precursor to the broader implementation of the world-changing technology of MFA.  It enables a new generation of lift and motion technology that will change the way we view transportation. Additional applications for MFA technology are virtually limitless – from business, to industry, to healthcare, and beyond.

Unlike magnetic levitation systems employed today, our hover systems are comparably inexpensive and completely sustainable. Hovering modes of transportation are now possible and practical. Lifting a wide range of loads – whether it’s a person riding a hoverboard (what we were all expecting) or a building riding out an earthquake (what we never imagined could be possible) – is all within reach.

Our goal is to create an ecosystem, together with you, of technologies that use Magnetic Field Architecture. We want to encourage the democratization of technology – first it was software, then hardware, and now we can give anyone with an internet connection access to the cutting edge of high technology.

You no longer need to be a researcher in a lab to make groundbreaking scientific discoveries that change the world.

Planes, trains, and automobiles. But that’s just the start. It’s clear how this hover technology can shift the current transportation paradigm, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. There is a large range of industries that MFA™ and hover technology can dramatically disrupt and improve.

We have a number of applications in mind, with industries that range from warehouse operations, to building foundation improvements, to novel methods of electromechanical fluid separation.

But what really excites us are the possibilities of applications we have no idea even exist – from new ways to harness energy, to replacing specific pieces of equipment in manufacturing processes; from the ordinary, to the exotic.

Right up front, we will admit that our plans are big—and our dreams, bigger. Because we’re developing something that is truly, manifestly . . . revolutionary. Now don’t lose us on that clichéd promise of “revolutionary”. We are Hendo, give us a few paragraphs to make our case.

Seeing from an outsider’s perspective, and thinking differently in general, is a definitional aspect of Hendo. Which brings us to our founder, Greg Henderson. Greg envisioned a way to employ an unexploited technology in ways others had not.  He labeled this epiphany: Magnetic Field Architecture (MFA™). Then he trademarked and patented the hell out of the idea.

At an altruistic level, our technology has the ability to change the way we think about how communities are designed and built – from family homes, to hospital rooms, to factories, to skyscrapers. We can build structures such that, with the flip of a switch, they are lifted out of harm’s way.  The potential ravages of earthquakes and floods will no longer hold sway over occupants of these buildings.

Now there’s a whole lot of breathtakingly-clever technology that goes on behind the scenes in this scenario, but the concept is quite simple . . . and quite real.  It’s a big dream, we know. And it’s long term. But we believe in its possibility…and its promise. Join us.

We chose to launch with a Kickstarter campaign because we wanted the public to be an integral part of our story, as close to its genesis as possible. Our supporters not only have financial buy in, but an almost spiritual buy in as well, not just for the technology but for the ultimate vision of Hendo – a place where anyone with “naive daring” can approach the “impossible”.

So we want to thank you for not only supporting our campaign, but also for joining us on this great endeavor. We look forward to building the future together!

We held off launching until all the pieces were in place to ensure we will deliver on our promises by the big day, October 21st 2015.