Tip for riders of hoverboards

(Image: Pixabay CC0) - Engineering researchers have some simple advice for people learning to ride hoverboards: it's all in the ankles. An experiment using sophisticated cameras and sensors attached to first-time riders revealed that ankle movements, not knee or hip movements, are the key to catching on to the increasingly popular devices. "Those who learned faster and performed better had strongly adopted an ankle strategy, meaning that they controlled their ankle motion by activating or co-activating the muscles around them," said Arash Arami , a professor of mechanical and mechatronics engineering at the University of Waterloo and senior author of a new study. Hoverboards have a motor and two wheels connected by a platform. Riders steer and balance with their feet, although some models are self-balancing. While new riders would be wise to concentrate on ankle movement, the study by researchers in Canada, the United Kingdom and Japan also showed the central nervous system somehow seems to just know the best strategy to use. After a short familiarization session, volunteers were primarily relying on ankle movements within a few minutes of maneuvering hoverboards back and forth using three different foot positions.