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SpaceX selects 124 engineering teams to do battle in Hyperloop pod design competition

SpaceX selects 124 engineering teams to do battle in Hyperloop pod design competition
Competing teams will present their pod designs to a panel made up of judges from SpaceX, Tesla and Texas A&M
Competing teams will present their pod designs to a panel made up of judges from SpaceX, Tesla and Texas A&M
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SpaceX announced its Hyperloop Pod Competition in June, encouraging engineering teams to develop their own designs for passenger capsules that could be shuttled through the system's frictionless tubes at up to 760 mph (1,223 km/h)
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SpaceX announced its Hyperloop Pod Competition in June, encouraging engineering teams to develop their own designs for passenger capsules that could be shuttled through the system's frictionless tubes at up to 760 mph (1,223 km/h)
Competing teams will present their pod designs to a panel made up of judges from SpaceX, Tesla and Texas A&M
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Competing teams will present their pod designs to a panel made up of judges from SpaceX, Tesla and Texas A&M
Shortlisted teams will move on to building functional prototypesof their Hyperloop passenger capsules for the final phase of the competition
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Shortlisted teams will move on to building functional prototypesof their Hyperloop passenger capsules for the final phase of the competition
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SpaceX itself might not be building Elon Musk's Hyperloop, but it is making every effort to push things along. Earlier this year it announced the construction of a 1-mile (1.6-km) test track and it has now invited over 120 engineering teams to show off design concepts for a Hyperloop pod to a panel of judges in January. The most promising will then put their human-scale prototypes through their paces at SpaceX HQ the following US summer.

SpaceX announced its Hyperloop Pod Competition in June, encouraging engineering teams to develop their own designs for passenger capsules that could be shuttled through the system's frictionless tubes at up to 760 mph (1,223 km/h). Since then it has received more than 1,200 submissions, but has now whittled that number down to 124 entrants who will present their concepts at the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition Design Weekend at Texas A&M University on January 29 and 30.

Universities from all over the world will be represented, including teams from India's Vellore Institute of Technology and Uzbekistan's Turin Polytechnic University in Tashkent, along with names already well established in engineering circles like Stanford University and MIT. The full list can be viewed here.

The teams will present their designs to a panel made up of judges from SpaceX, Tesla and Texas A&M. From there, a number will be shortlisted and move on to building functional prototypes for the final phase of the competition. This will take place in the coming US summer at SpaceX's Hyperloop test track adjacent to its California headquarters.

Two unrelated companies are in the process of building their own Hyperloop test tracks, with the view to making the futuristic transport system more than a pipe dream. Hyperloop Transportation Technologies is constructing a 5-mile (8-km) track in Quay Valley, a proposed self-sustaining model town in California's Central Valley. The similarly named Hyperloop Technologies plans to begin open air-testing on its own track next month.

Source: Texas A&M University

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4 comments
4 comments
Old_Rider
yup, easy way to get your design made cheaply, have college engineer students do it for you for a prize money, instead of paying a team of experienced engineers to do it for you.
sowhat
@Old_Rider - the students are probably ecstatic to work on it. I know I would be. And if they are selected, that would be one heck of an item to put on a resume (or even be hired by that company).
I tell you what....why don't you start your own business and only pay absolute top dollar for everything?
Stephen N Russell
Bring in ET3.com into project as well. Make designs public after judges choices, then let online public choose. Make scale models & mockups for trade shows alone IE LA Auto Show Old Sacramento RR Museum, Sacramento CA
Biggles
Good for you SpaceX ! I read this article with great delight and hope for the future of the project ( whether it succeeds or not). Good luck also to all the 124 teams across the world taking part in this big effort advance in science. Thanks to sowhat for his comment on the principal of this world wide competition . The world would still be in 1915 if there were not open competitions for science such as in 1714 for England's first maritime chronometer.