Hyperloop Competition

By David DeMeo

Elon Musk and his company, SpaceX, have been holding a hyperloop pod competition. A hyperloop is a high speed, futuristic transportation system created by Elon Musk. It is still very much in the design phase and it will be a long time until we see this in action. The competition is between groups of engineers from colleges and universities.

One article posted by ChicagoInno describes the University of Illinois engineering students who have been working on their “Illini Hyperloop.” The article describes the confidence and statistics of the 7 foot long, 3 foot wide pod. One of the interesting things was that it was not yet close to ready to house a human. I think that this will be a huge addition because of the weight that these comforts like a seat will add to the pod. Elon Musk’s original plan was to see the pods traveling at 750mph and the Illini pod is planned to travel at 250mph without human comforts. It will be interesting to see how long it takes to see this project expand and move to the next step.

After further research I found out that out of the 20 teams including the Illini Hyperloop, MIT, Delft and WARR, were the three finalist in the competition. Many other teams received awards including the only high school that participated. Because these are the first prototypes, it will most likely be quite a while before we see this in action. I’m excited to see this revolutionize our travel.

Sources:
ChicagoInno
ArsTechnia