Lev-cutlery2
Levitating Cutlery

A placemat with hidden magnets that enables cutlery to “levitate”

After having created the Magnetic Chopping Board, I was looking over the prototype board, and it occurred to me that if you put it face down, the magnets in the surface would have their repelling side upward. I wondered if it might be possible to make on object levitate, by attaching a magnet that would push against the field created by the magnets in the board. With a little tinkering, I came up with the placemat. At the moment, there is one point of contact between the place mat and the cutlery, but in theory, and with some development, it would be possible to have the cutlery floating free.

Potentially the idea could be developed to make trivets, or other implements  or simply host Harry Potter Style dinner parties. The real aim for the product is to provoke curiosity, and the question “how does that work?”