On this week’s episode of Science and Star Wars…
Speeders and Hover Vehicles.
(intro music)
Hello! And welcome to Science and Star Wars where we explore how close real world sciences come
to our favorite Star Wars technology.
I’m Anthony Carboni and right over there on the wall is a good buddy of mine!
Hello, my name is Watson.
And today, we’re talking about speeders and hover vehicles.
You know, the things we were promised by literally all of science fiction.
In Star Wars, speeders are some of the most common everyday vehicles.
Back me up here Watson.
Yes, speeders are the common form of land transportation.
Based on the StarWars.com databank, there are at least 18 types of speeders including
landspeeders, snowspeeders and speederbikes.
And the term "speeder" is pretty accurate considering what happens when you’re not careful.
(screams and blows up)
But are hover vehicles like the ones in Star Wars even possible?
In real life, hover vehicles could work one of two ways.
The first is using intense airlift.
These vehicles have giant fans that create a cushion of air underneath themselves making them
float along the ground.
We’re actually using that technique to simulate the frictionless environment that you would
see in space.
Specifically to be able to test out new technologies and techniques for rendezvous and proximity
operations.
And the other way is magnets.
Maglev trains are literally trains that levitate on magnets for a faster and smoother ride.
Unfortunately the problem is the need for magnetic rails.
What about hover boards you say?
Travel to the future and ride them you say?
Different franchise you say?
Anyway they do exist.
But like Maglev trains they need a magnetic track to push against.
Meaning they won’t fly on your sidewalk yet.
It is possible this asteroid is not entirely stable.
But let’s be honest, hover vehicle technology is just too good for engineers to pass up.
IBM’s work on magnets has not only made computer technology better but could also
be a key to the future of hover vehicles.
There are lots of ways to make something hover.
My favorite way is superconducting.
Magnetic levitation.
If you take a superconductor and cool it down to where it actually becomes superconducting,
it becomes a magnetic mirror.
So if it’s sitting over a magnet and if the field is strong enough, it can actually
support the weight and float in midair.
We’re getting closer to figuring out a recipe to do a superconductor that would work near
room temperature.
So ice water instead of liquid nitrogen to cool it off.
If we could achieve that it would be a huge transformation in technology.
And if you don’t have magnets or giant spinning fans there’s also the high power water jet option.
(screams and blows up)
Now it’s time for me to finally have something I’ve dreamed of since I was a child…a
hoverboard.
But I guess since we’re Star Wars, a personal speeder.
Diana Williams of the Lucasfilm Story Group is it okay for me to call it a personal speeder?
Absolutely sure, go for it.
Thank you very much.
Definitely not canon.
We are going to make our own personal speeder here.
We’re going to make the world’s teeniest, tiniest landspeeder.
Let’s do this.
So we have our superconductor here.
Ours is a ceramic superconductor made mostly of Yttrium.
We want to get it down below its critical temperature.
Right, we’re cooling it down with liquid nitrogen.
Once we do that, it will lose all electrical resistance.
We also have a very tiny rare earth magnet here.
Ohhhhh!
Air horn!!
It’s all happening!
It’s the tiniest little landspeeder.
Oooh look at me, Tosche station, moisture farms, ooh!
We can go bigger.
We should go bigger.
So what we have here is an entire track made of the same neodymium magnets so instead of
the magnet being our hovercraft, our superconductor will now be our hovercraft.
Ready?
I’m coming to you.
Bewwwww!
Woop woop!
By the way these are the official speeder noises.
Here’s the thing, we can’t make a human sized maglev speeder.
Disappointing.
But we can make something else.
Dazzle me.
Look at what we made.
It’s a landspeeder.
Yeah, yeah I know.
Okay.
So what we have is a high quality plywood base, entirely corrugated cardboard body,
plastic windshield, dent in the front…for continuity.
And dual, 60 volt leaf blowers.
Ready?
Which will push 1,080 cubic feet of air per second into a 6-miliplastic skirt on the bottom
of the craft.
And you will be hovering!
(Epic music plays)
(laughing)
How was that!?
Wow.
This is amazing!
Excellent, well I think we have ruined just about everybody’s work day…
Pretty much.
And shown!
That speeders can be real!
So, thank you Diana Williams for coming by.
Thank you for inviting me!
And look for all the rest of our videos, check out IBM.com/starwars.