Like many young boys growing up at a time when Michael J Fox skated about Hill Valley in the Back to the Future series, Simon Morris dreamed of one day having a hoverboard like the device that appeared in the sequels.
Working in display design years later, the idea stuck with the New Yorker as he worked with magnets in order to make shoes and skateboards levitate above a surface for exhibitions and shows. By using the repelling poles of magnets – one embedded in the shoe and the other on a stand – the item would seemingly float in mid air. Then came his lightbulb moment.
Image: Flyte’s levitating lightbulb. Photograph: Flyte
