Week 2

Last week, Audie and I got our hoverboard totally assembled and ready for a test run. When we fired it up, it worked beautifully. However, when we attempted to ride it, we discovered that there were three main issues we needed to address:
1) The entire board would vibrate violently.
2) The plywood that we stood on would bend under the weight of a person.
3) Because the plywood would bend, the board would no longer slide.

To solve this, we decided to disassemble the hoverboard and replace the original 1/2" thick plywood base with a 5/8" thick one.

When we reassembled the improved version, we observed that while the vibration had ceased, the board still bent, just not as much.

So, we made plans to build another mini hoverdisc, this time with a 1.25' diameter. We hypothesized that this mini disc, when mounted between the other two (underneath the rider) would both keep the board from bend and put less pressure on the other two discs, making the board slide better.

Week 1

Last week, Audie and I continued our plans to create a new and improved hovercraft based on the designs for the original hover craft. The blueprints that I created for the new design are as follows:



























As you can see, we had created several different ideas for a new craft. W had decided on the "hovertrike" idea, until we realized that this design would propose a center of gravity problem. So, we threw everything out and came up with this:



A hoverboard!!!
The new blueprints, for the new HOVERBOARD were as follows:









The board would be comprised of two separate 2' diameter "hoverdiscs" with a 3' long by 1.25' wide board stretching between them. The two discs would be powered by one shop vac each, with each vacuum plugged into a mounted power strip that would be plugged into an extension cord.