All I wanted for Christmas was a Hoverboard.

Ever since we watched Marty McFly evading Biff and the gang in Back to the Future II, hoverboards have been a flight of fantasy for many who grow up in the 80’s and 90’s. 

Back then if we could have, we’d jump in the DeLorean, punch in the date 30-04-2016, make sure we hit 88mph and hope the flux capacitor works.

30-04-2016 is the date Franky Zapata broke the world record for farthest flight on a hoverboard (or did he, there is a lot of speculation around the web that it isn’t real, but it’s recognised as a Guinness world record), his 2252m flight beat the previous record held by Catalin Alexandru Duru at 275.9m.

Today’s reality of a hoverboard is slightly different to those used by the Hill Valley posse of 2015 and unlike the hoverboards in Back to the Future II, it is advisable to use them above water, in fact you’d be a fool not to.


So just how do you, go about making a Hoverboard anyway. Well that’s something two of these guys can answer.

For Catalin Alexandru Duru, Lithium-Ion polymer batteries and eight propellers fixed to eight DC motors form the propulsion system whilst pliers are used to form the acceleration control system, that’s right – pliers

Let's see how it looks in action

Franky Zapata’s Flyboard® Air on the other hand uses six engines, a logic board and a backpack of kerosene (sounds crazy to me) to form the propulsion system, he is able to stay airborne for up to ten minutes, fly at 10,000 feet and hit a top speed of 93.2mph.

So this one's a little more Silver Surfer than Marty McFly

I’m sure both these men owe much of their inspiration to the young Marty McFly, however there are others out there such as Colin Furze, who it seems, just build for the fun of it. Check out his hoverbike, just one piece of advice, you may wish to turn the volume down before playing.

Colin Furze is a self-proclaimed garage inventor and video marker, you can checkout his site here.

Here at DesignSpark we deliver Innovation for every engineer, our free design tools and access to a product range of over 500,000 products allow you to design logic boards, order Lithium-Ion batteries, DC Motors and even Pliers for acceleration control systems.

Well now it’s over to you, the DesignSpark community, use our free design tools, go build your flying machines and let us know how you get on. As for me, well, I’m going back to the future.

But just for reference anything with wheels on the ground doesn’t hover, they may call them hoverboards but we know different.