Create and Ride a Hoverboard

Today's activity is a mixture of listening and fun with the opportunity of having some real interaction with native speakers of English.

The activity comes in two parts. In the first part you will watch a video and learn how to make your own hoverboard.


In the second part PC users will be able to find out how to ride and race a virtual hoverboard and where to get some lessons using some free software for a virtual world called there.com

Task:

• For the first part of this activity you will watch the video below and find out how to make your own hoverboard. Have a pen and paper ready to make notes. When you are ready play the clip and note down all of the things that you will need.
• The try to write down the process involved in putting all these things together. You will probably need to watch the video clip 4 - 5 times to do this.
• Remember that you can pause a replay chunks of the video when you find it difficult.

You can find the answers to this video task at the end of this posting.

• Now if you have a PC computer ( not a MAC) then you can download some free software and learn to ride a virtual hoverboard.

Watch this video to see how it's done:

• To download the free software, you'll need to go to: http://www.there.com/and click on get started. You'll need to have an email address and you'll have to download the software onto your computer and install it.

• Once you have the software installed you'll be able to text chat with other visitors to the world and do lots of things like hoverboarding round a course, driving a buggy and going to parties and dances. There is also a newspaper that you can subscribe to: Fun Times

• There are also lots of places to visit, including historical recreations of the Pyramids and of course the great hoverboard tracks where you can meet other hoverboard racers and get them to show you how to do tricks and get round the course faster.

• This is a great way to meet people from all over the world and use your English to communicate with real people, but be sure to read about your online safety first: Online Safety Guide

Now here are the answers to the video task: How to make a hoverboard

You need:

• a petrol driven leaf blower
• some plumbing pipe
• strong tape
• a plastic storage container
• some ‘heavy duty’ (very strong) plastic
• a large wooden board

Procedure:

• Make a hole in the board and redirect the air from the leaf blower through the hole using the pipe and tape
• Round off edges of the board so they aren’t sharp
• Make the ‘skirt’ for the board from thick plastic used for lining ponds
• Staple the skirt to the board
• Use strips of plastic cut from a storage box to make a strip down the centre of the underside of the hover board
• Screw the strip of plastic ‘grommet’ down the centre of the board and make air holes in the skirt

Well, happy hoverboarding. Hope you enjoy this and come back again for more EFL ESL activities.

Related links for teachers:

• Looking at There.com
• 3B Village 3D browser
• Teaching Speaking in Second Life
• Building in Second Life
• More Second Life Tutorials
• Photo Assignments for EFL ESL Students in Second Life

Best

Nik Peachey