Tony Hawk got the chance to ride on a real hoverboard recently, courtesy of California startup Arx Pax, in a follow-up to the skateboard legend's "Funny or Die" prank video from earlier this year, which featured a fake hover craft.
The hoverboard has been a thing of science fiction lore ever since it was featured in 1989's "Back to the Future 2." That is, until Arx Pax created its newest prototype, Hendo.
Arx Pax released the Hawk video this week in an attempt to raise another $250,000 to go along with the
$450,000 it has already generated through its Kickstarter campaign.
One of the startup's challenges is proving to people that the Hendo is real, especially after March's "Funny or Die" skit, which featured "Back to the Future" star Christopher Lloyd and a group of other celebrities riding a hoverboard.
Dave Carnie, of TheRideChannel.com, witnessed Hawk with the Hendo and revealed that it works with magnets, meaning that it can only hover over a limited number of surfaces.
"Right now, what we have is essentially the Model-T (of hoverboards)," Carnie wrote. "This is a proof of concept. And because we made this big leap in efficiency, we are able now to do what other folks couldn't do on a conductive material like aluminum or copper. As we optimize this system, ideally we'll be able to go on other surfaces."
Here's the prank clip: