Archinect - News

Real-life tractor beam: NASA teams with Arx Pax to create micro-satellite capture devices

2015-09-02T08:00:00-04:00

Architect-founded technology firm Arx Pax, who brought you the Hendo Hoverboard, and NASA, who recently brought you photos of Pluto, announced today that they've teamed up in a Space Act Agreement to create micro-satellite capture devices that create magnetic tethers between satellites.

The technology, which is based on Arx Pax's patented electromagnetic energy transmitting Magnetic Field Architecture (MFA), would allow the proposed devices to manipulate and couple satellites from a distance. This effect could be roughly compared to the "tractor beam" used on the TV show "Star Trek" (except for small satellites only, and with a much simpler initiator than the NCC 1701).

Arx Pax and NASA are keen to design a device that can attract one object to another remotely, which would allow the initiator to keep an object in its field stationary: once engaged in the device's field, the satellite would be unable to either move from or toward the device. According to Arx Pax, this "will enable the...

Lexus offers a glimpse of a functional hoverboard prototype

2015-06-25T18:18:00-04:00

Watch out, world. Toyota is heading back to the future. The automaker has hinted it’s looking into flying cars. Now its Lexus luxury brand has actually built a working model of a hoverboard.

Social media lit up last night after Lexus revealed a tantalizing promo video for a "functional hoverboard" prototype. Smoke can be seen curling up from the skateboard-like design, which features a bamboo deck and "the iconic Lexus spindle grille." The prototype uses liquid nitrogen-cooled superconductors and magnets, a technology already implemented in Japan's high-speed rail lines to eliminate friction. While the video appears to show the board hovering on a regular surface, reports indicate that there is a metal track beneath the custom-designed skate park, which was built in a town outside of Barcelona.

If the video makes you nostalgic for Back to the Future, it's no coincidence. A more detailed release is slated for Oct. 21, the day that Marty McFly traversed back to the future.

Actually, this isn't actually the world's first overboard prototype. Hendo Hoverboard is a crowd-sourced technology designed by Greg Henderson, an architect by training. Henderson joined Archinect Sessio...

A Chat with the Architect who Invented the Hoverboard: Episode 4 of Archinect Sessions out now!

2014-10-30T11:08:00-04:00

This week, Paul, Amelia, Donna and Ken speak with architect Greg Henderson about his hoverboarding technology, and its potential applications in architecture. Greg's architectural background led us to discuss the history of Working Out of the Box, and what may come next for the series, now that employers have more jobs than there are architects to fill them.

We also consider the problematics of the Helsinki Guggenheim's Stage One entries, and whether Gehry's bird flipping makes him into a crotchety old man or defiant punk.

Listen to episode four of the Archinect Sessions podcast, "A Chat with the Architect Who Invented the Hoverboard":

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Greg He...