It’s not unusual for children to dream of possessing traits similar to superheroes they seen on TV and in the movies. But what happens when an adult with similar aspirations actually has the know-how, time and money to make those dreams a reality? You get things like Magneto shoes.

Inventor Colin Furze recently put the finishing touches on a pair of gravity-defying kicks that allow him to walk on the ceiling of his workshop while dangling upside-down. And as you can see in the clip below, there’s no lack of childhood enthusiasm and excitement from his creation.

As it turns out, the shoes are actually somewhat easy to build. Furze collected some old microwaves from a local scrap yard, harvested the magnetic coil from their transformers then ran current through them to create a strong electromagnet.

From here, it was just a matter of strapping the contraptions to the bottom of an old pair of shoes and rigging up some way to actually be able to walk while hanging by his feet.

This was actually the hardest part as he needed some way to kill power to each shoe as he took steps. Furthermore, the zany inventor had to come up with a way to prevent the unpowered shoes from falling back to the ground – strength alone simply wasn’t enough. The solution was a series of ropes that accomplished both tasks.

Sure, it isn’t terribly practical but it’s neat nevertheless.

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