Bed technology tends to be kind of boring. Sure, you’ve got your Sleep Number alchemy and that memory foam stuff, but where are our space beds, or like, flying beds or whatever? Redditor mememetatata must have asked himself a similarly meandering question, and then decided to do something about it by building a levitating magnetic bed. Yes, ladies and gents, this bed floats.
The bed actually consists of two seperate and necessary parts, much like a regular boxspring and mattress combo. First, you’ve got your base (the large part there, you know, the one that looks like it could be the base of something), which provides the housing for very specifically and securely placed neodymium magnets. For those of you who are unfamiliar, neodymium magnets are totally insane. The second part, the effective mattress, is basically just a smaller slab of wood — comfy! — with similarly placed magnets intended to repel those in the base. Tie it down to keep it from flying away and there you have it, floating bed.
The completed bed can float an impressive 250 pounds, making it suitable for floating your average sleeper. Whether or not it can keep your average sleeper comfortable, on the other hand, seems far more questionable. If you’re wondering what it might feel like to sleep while on this floating bed, I think I can offer you a pretty good idea; it probably feels suspiciously similar to sleeping on a piece of wood, but cooler. That said, I’d definitely give it a try if I had the chance, but I don’t think this is a fad that’ll catch on.
There’s a slideshow that shows some step-by-step stuff over on reddit.
(reddit via Hack a Day)
- This totally righteous range uses magnets to cook
- Superconducting magnets need helium to function, and helium is in short supply
Published: May 23, 2012 12:36 pm