Give your skateboard a boost by hooking it up to a battery-operated drill

By Bruce Brown Published June 1, 2016

If you’ve been itching for a cool board for local transportation, that itch may have gotten worse with the delays and the crazy-high prices associated with battery-powered boards. Well, here’s an electric board you can put together yourself.

If you have an ounce or two of DIY juice (well maybe a just a couple ounces), and a few dollars for some drill accessories, Igor from Inspire to Make can show you how to make your own powered board, as reported by Sploid Gizmodo.

Recommended Videos

So the “few dollars” applies if you have a suitable drill. If you don’t have — or can’t borrow — a pretty hefty portable drill, This project probably isn’t for you. Even if you watch the video a couple dozen times, if you hook it all up to a puny portable drill, you won’t go fast or far, and any chance of points from your friends will be lost in their laughter.

But let’s say you’re good to go. You’ve got the drill, you’ve got a good vise and the other bits and pieces you’ll need, as well as a flexible drill bit extender.

The demo ride in the video looks like fun and none of the other people in view are freaking out. It’s a little hard to see passers-by or to judge how fast the board is traveling because the video is sped up a bit in many spots. The rider has the right bent-knee posture for control and that’s a good thing because to reach the drill, he has to bend down a bit. Clearly, if he were a lot taller, both the look and the ride control would suffer.

Former Contributing Editor

Bruce Brown Contributing Editor As a Contributing Editor to the Auto teams at Digital Trends and TheManual.com, Bruce…

Topics

Emerging Tech

Anti-surveillance clothing is getting cheaper, but don’t expect an invisibility cloak

Affordable shirts now claim to confuse facial recognition, although their protection depends heavily on the camera and software watching you

Chart, Plot, Adult

Anti-surveillance clothing is starting to look less like an art-school experiment and more like something you could actually wear outside. Shirts designed to confuse facial recognition systems now cost about as much as ordinary streetwear, although buying one won’t make you disappear.

The Guardian reports that designers are using face-like prints, unusual cuts and infrared lights to interfere with computer vision. These techniques target specific weaknesses, so their success depends on what happens to be watching you.

Emerging Tech

This spinning drone hides in plain sight using a visual illusion

This drone doesn't turn invisible. It tricks your brain into thinking it has.

Phantom Twist

For decades, engineers have chased the dream of an invisible drone. The usual approaches have involved transparent materials, camouflage coatings, or complex optical systems that bend light around an object. Researchers at Northwestern University decided to take a completely different route. Instead of hiding the drone itself, they chose to fool the human eye.

The result is Phantom Twist, an experimental drone that spins so rapidly it almost disappears into the background. It's not technically invisible, but to anyone watching, it looks more like a faint blur than a flying machine.

Emerging Tech

This smart knitted fabric can flip switches, count your steps, and even change shape

Grandma's knitting just entered its Iron Man era

Representative Image

For most of us, knitting brings to mind sweaters, scarves, and perhaps an ambitious grandmother determined to make winter more fashionable. Researchers at Harvard University, however, have a far more futuristic vision. They've transformed ordinary knitted fabric into a programmable material capable of changing shape, acting as an electrical switch, sensing movement, and potentially forming the foundation of tomorrow's wearable technology.

The research, published in Advanced Functional Materials by scientists at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), demonstrates how machine-knitted textiles can "snap" between multiple stable shapes without relying on motors or rigid mechanical parts.