The Slide (stylized SLIDE) is a magnetically levitating

hoverboard A hoverboard (or hover board) is a fictional levitating board used for personal transportation, first described in science-fiction, and made famous by the appearance of a skateboard-like hoverboard in the film ''Back to the Future Part II''. Ma ...

demonstration developed by

Lexus is the luxury vehicle division of the Japanese automaker Toyota, Toyota Motor Corporation. The Lexus brand is marketed in more than 90 countries and territories worldwide and is Japan's largest-selling make of premium cars. It has ranked amon ...

, who built a skate park in

Barcelona, Spain Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a pop ...

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 Superconductivity is a set of physical properties observed in superconductors: materials where electrical resistance vanishes and magnetic fields are expelled from the material. Unlike an ordinary metallic conductor, whose resistance decreases g ...

levitation Levitation, Levitate, or Levitating may refer to: Concepts *Levitation (illusion), an illusion where a magician appears to levitate a person or object *Levitation (paranormal), the claimed paranormal phenomenon of levitation, occurring without an ...

, were mostly responsible for the design of the system.

Professional skateboarder Skateboarding is an action sport that involves riding and performing tricks using a skateboard, as well as a recreational activity, an art form, an entertainment industry job, and a method of transportation. Originating in the United States, ...

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 Yttrium barium copper oxide (YBCO) is a family of crystalline chemical compounds that display high-temperature superconductivity; it includes the first material ever discovered to become superconducting above the boiling point of liquid nitrogen ...

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 In electrical engineering, a practical electric power source which is a linear circuit may, according to Thévenin's theorem, be represented as an ideal voltage source in series with an impedance. This impedance is termed the internal resis ...

as long as they are kept below a certain temperature based on the particular material. When a metal has no internal resistance, a

current Currents, Current or The Current may refer to: Science and technology * Current (fluid), the flow of a liquid or a gas ** Air current, a flow of air ** Ocean current, a current in the ocean *** Rip current, a kind of water current ** Current (hydr ...

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 Cubelles () is a municipality in Catalonia, in the province of Barcelona, Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, ...

.{{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 Video

Lexus SLIDE Official Page
Lexus Maglev Skateboards