Hoverboard hype

Sophomore Zach Tyler shifts his weight forward as the gadget he stands on lights up and accelerates toward his desired destination.

More and more teenagers are either getting, or at least wanting, to take a ride on the hoverboard Tyler glides steadily on.

A hoverboard is a balancing scooter that moves in response to weight shifts and is used for personal transportation.

Talk of hoverboards started to surface in early November and quickly made it to the top of Christmas wish lists at store. Metro PCS quickly started to become busy with customers wanting their hoverboards.

“We started selling hoverboards in November around black friday time and then it was Christmas so they were super popular around that time,” Sales Representative for Metro PCS Desire Johnson said. “Now they have different styles and installments to them and are becoming more and more popular.”

According to the movie Back to the Future 2 in 2015, we were supposed to have hoverboards, and once a knockoff was invented, everyone wanted one.

“They are very fun to ride around on,” Tyler said. “It’s like a better version of a skateboard but you don’t have to put work into it.”

Hoverboards are also fun objects that can make for memorable moments.

“My best memory with my hoverboard was when my friend and I were riding it on my street decided to see how fast we could get it to go,” Tyler said. “The recommended speed is six mph. We pushed it to 10 so it started beeping telling us to slow down. It definitely made for a fun afternoon.”

The hoverboard also makes going from living room to the kitchen to grab a bag of potato chips more efficient.

“It’s a just lot of fun,” Tyler said with a smirk. “If I’m lazing around in my house, I don’t have to walk if I need something, I just get on my hoverboard. Their biggest downside is how expensive they are.”

Senior Caroline Harvitt disagrees.

“I tried the hoverboard because I thought they would be fun,” Harvitt said. “At first I liked them but then I realized they were very unstable and bad on tile. I went to say hi to a friend and I fell off on the tile and slipped and broke my elbow. I had to have surgery where they put pins in my arm and I still have the pins. That was a really bad experience. I don’t ever want to go on one again.”

The risk of injury isn’t the only danger. Hoverboards have also blown up if left charging for too long. In fact, Amazon stopped selling hoverboards due to its fire hazard. In a couple of different places, a hoverboard left charging set fire and destroyed a home.

“There have been some risks with the fire hazard but our hoverboards are UL certified and all have Samsung batteries in them so ours do not overheat,” Johnson said. “That can be hard to convince parents who don’t want their homes burned down.”

UL, or Underwriters Laboratories, certified means that UL has tested representative samples of the product and determined that it meets their safety requirements as well as the recognized Standards for Safety. Even if overheating wasn’t a problem, Harvitt would want additional safety measures.

“There should be a button or a command register where you could say stop and then the hoverboard would stop,” Harvitt said. “The only way to stop now is just to jump off it, which is very sketchy.”

The fun traits of a hoverboard are accompanied by the possibility of fires and falls.

“There are so many videos of people falling and that for whatever reason makes people wanna try them,” Harvitt said with a look of confusion. “Also, lots of celebrity are trying them so it is seen as this risky new thing to try. Ads are popping up everywhere being like, ‘Get a hoverboard.’ And I’m thinking, ‘Uh, no thank.”

Even with some negative opinions surrounding hoverboards, Johnson is convinced that their popularity will continue to increase.

“They are becoming more advanced, we’re even thinking of opening our own store just for hoverboards,” Johnson said. “They are gonna take off. It is 2016, after all.”