Rocket skates have been the stuff of childhood fantasy ever since Wile E. Coyote first strapped a pair of miniature Acme rockets on an old pair of roller skates as part of a harebrained scheme devised to capture The Road Runner (which, of course, never happened). That Saturday morning cartoon originally aired in 1952, and now, some 62 years later, RocketSkates are finally a real thing. Well, sort of.
Naturally, strapping rockets to your ankles (or any other body part) is sure to be a spectacularly bad idea. Thankfully, Los Angeles-based entrepreneur, Peter Treadway, was clever enough to realize that with his own take on RocketSkates. As it turns out, modern-day technology makes the use of ballistic missiles as a means for bi-pedal mobility completely unnecessary. Armed with brushless DC motors, lithium-ion batteries, and microchips, Treadway set about developing what we now know as the RocketSkates, a product which made its debut as a Kickstarter project that wound up being wildly successful.
Seen in the video above, Treadway shows the RocketSkates in action as he skillfully snakes through event-goers at the Luxury Technology Show. He makes it look easy, but you can tell some practice will be needed by first-time users.
In addition to travelling up to 12 mph, the RocketSkates can connect to smartphones to track travel, and play games or simply meet up with other RocketSkaters.
Editors' Recommendations
- Dramatic SpaceX video shows Falcon 9 rocket land, topple over, and explode
- As we learned firsthand, ‘graceful’ and ‘Rocket Skates’ do not go together
- Acton’s remote-free RocketSkates are like mini Segways you strap to your feet
