This tiny hovercraft went viral.
This tiny hovercraft went viral.
Hideyasu Ito runs the Micro Hovercraft Laboratory, and I got to meet him and ride his incredible four-bubble hovercraft. ■ The Laboratory: @hideito9042 http://mhlabo.web.fc2.com/ or https://twitter.com/microhovercraft
Local producer: Yasuharu Matsuno at Mind Architect
Camera and edit: Julian Domanski
(This video has an English dub available on supported devices. Change the language option to use it!)
I’m at https://tomscott.com
on Twitter at https://twitter.com/tomscott
on Facebook at https://facebook.com/tomscott
and on Instagram as tomscottgo
And that’s the last video from Japan! Thanks so much to everyone I met there, and especially to my local producer and camera op who made the whole thing possible.
Back to the low tech rest of the world
Did they ban internet
Like rola scates
The controls on that thing suck! Tom, you need to program a Playstation-controller interface for him so that he can have one-finger analogue input. Or at least show him how to do it.
Loved all the videos from Japan!
Seeing an inventor who isn’t doing it for venture capital investment, not for likes on social media, but just because he thinks his ideas will be “fun” to work on is really great. I’m glad to see someone who enjoys what they do purely for the experience of doing it.
Everyone wants to do that, but unfortunately that usually doesn’t put food on the table.
It’s always good to invent and be creative, so I get it ❤
NO CREATIVE, I repeat NONE OF THEM, do what they do for money – capitalism just forces us all to think about the bottomline and many of us cannot afford a hobby that doesn’t at least pay for itself heh
That’s actually most inventors, but because it’s not for profit or likes you won’t see those as often.
That’s what makes Colin furze so good
I absolutely love that the story of how this guy became a hobbyist hovercraft builder begins with “I found leaf blowers being sold really cheap”
I know! It’s the most unpretentious thing ever!
It’s so pure
I love that it’s not like the future of transport or anything it’s just a guy who likes making hovercraft
I feel like Japan has this cultural history of people finding one particular thing and just really focusing in on it.
The future of transport is now each of us making our own hovercrafts! 😂
Yes, sometimes it doesn’t have to be absolutely on-edge of the trends. It’s enough to be joyful and in the moment.
@Kain Yusanagi – He’s not using computer fans, he’s using leaf-blower fans (they do make electric leaf-blowers).
The thing is, for a hovercraft you need a compressor, not just a basic fan. If you could use the kind of fans they have for ultra-quiet drones in a compressor style application, you certainly could quiet this down, but I’m not sure those are really possible yet.
Guy is just having a good time
This is amazing! I really appreciate people like Mr. Ito. The entire mentality of “Oh, I thought this was a cool notion, so I worked on it,” is so fundamental to human progress. Thank you for sharing!
@Indigo Industrial We would also have 99% of the population doing absolutely nothing all day. It would be the fall of humanity.
If we had Universal Basic Income then a lot more people would be doing this.
There’s a childlike expression of pure enjoyment on Tom’s face while he’s running the hovercraft.
“you can really feel his child-like presence”
I’m sure my face looked exactly the same!
He’s an adrenaline junkie remember
@Oracle Of Delphi reverse zamboni, instead of cleaning the ice it just floats on top 😂
Reminds me of a Zamboni.
This guy is the definition of “doing it for the bants”. He’s not here for viral fame, he just wants to make these contraptions because “I think it would be fun!” 😂😂😂
Exactly, it’s just a cool guy messing around in his shed.
It’s just that cheap modern technology means you can make really cool stuff 👍
@autohmae childlike?
With an almost child like innocence: “surprised anyone cared, this is just part of my every day life”
@Kevin A I’m glad I’m not the only one who has no idea what a bant is.
He’s living the life many people want to have, that of a 19th century inventor, you hang around, build some cool stuff that you like and maybe someone buys into it, otherwise it’s rinse/repeat
He tried so hard to speak English as much as he could. What a legend!
I absolutely love how this person simply enjoys his hobby and keeps making things because he finds them amusing
You could almost be talking about Tom there (except it’s no longer just a hobby).
“it surprisingly works!”
Inventors being surprised by themselves is always amazing
part of the creative process requires a great deal of failure, it’s just something creatives are used to.
It’s like programming. When we go from “Why doesn’t it work? There’s all the reasons it should!” to “Why does this work?! There’s all the reasons it shouldn’t!”
It’s even more surprising when you know how many corners you cut.
just goes to show that trying to make something is the most important part of the process
@Mr Pilot Occasionally!