Image Credit: Lunavity
Have you ever seen those big trampolines at a fair where they attach ropes to you? Imagine if you could walk around like that.
It has long been mankind’s dream to fly under our own power (or at least the power of something we make). Jetpacks aren’t quite a thing yet, mostly because A: we don’t have an economical fuel source for them, and B: we can’t make a real jetpack without setting our butts on fire. But there are enterprising minds out there dreaming up all kinds of solutions.
Take for example the Lunavity. The Lunavity is the startup brainchild of a few crafty students over at the University of Tokyo. It consists of a back-mounted pack connected to a ring of ten small, yet powerful propellers. It’s not unlike having a heavy-duty drone taped to your back. The Lunavity can’t make someone fly per se, since it can’t produce enough to lift to, well, lift a person, but it can do the next best thing: make them float. Thanks to the propellers, the wearer can jump high into the air, hover for a few seconds, then come slowly down. It’s a surprisingly accurate facsimile of low gravity spaces like the Moon (hence the name).
While the Lunavity could probably have a fair share of practical applications, its creators have more entertaining ones in mind. In a promotional video released when the project launched last year, they showed a tester jumping over a crosswalk, slam dunking a basketball, and watering the top of a tall tree. Nothing gets the creativity flowing like some good old fashioned shenanigans.
The Lunavity’s development is still ongoing. No word from the team on when, or even if, it’ll be finished or even commercially available. But that’s the fun part of science; it doesn’t always have to end in a commercial product. Sometimes, you just make a hover-pack because you can. And they did.
