22 Student Teams Will Test Pod Design at SpaceX Hyperloop Test Track

Twenty-two student teams are heading to California this summer to test their design prototype at the world’s first Hyperloop Test Track. More than 115 student engineering teams representing 27 U.S. states and 20 countries were at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas, this weekend participating in SpaceX’s Hyperloop Pod Competition Design Weekend.

The teams presented their plans for the overall pod design and were judged on a variety of criteria including innovation and uniqueness of design; full Hyperloop system applicability and economics; level of design detail; strength of supporting analysis and tests; feasibility for test tract competition; and quality of documentation and presentation.

The Top 5 student teams for the design and build category were:

• Best Overall Design Award
  MIT Hyperloop Team, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Pod Innovation Award
  Delft Hyperloop, Delft University of Technology (The Netherlands)
• Pod Technical Excellence Award
  Badgerloop, University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Pod Technical Excellence Award
  Hyperloop at Virginia Tech, Virginia Tech
• Pod Technical Excellence Award
  HyperXite, University of California Irvine

Other teams advancing to the competition weekend in California include:

• rLoop (non-student team)
• uWaterloo Hyperloop, University of Waterloo
• UWashington Hyperloop, University of Washington
• University of Toronto, University of Toronto
• RUMD Loop, University of Maryland and Rutgers University
• GatorLoop, University of Florida
• Team HyperLynx, University of Colorado-Denver
• Hyperloop UC, University of Cincinnati
• UCSB Hyperloop, University of California-Santa Barbara
• bLoop, University of California-Berkeley
• TAMU Aerospace Hyperloop, Texas A&M
• WARR Hyperloop, Technical University of Munich (Germany)
• Purdue Hyperloop Design Team, Purdue University
• Codex, Oral Roberts University
• Lehigh Hyperloop, Lehigh University
• Keio Alpha, Keio University
• Drexel Hyperloop, Drexel University
• Carnegie Mellon Hyperloop, Carnegie-Mellon University

“Congratulations to the finalists and all the student teams who competed in the first-ever SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition,” said John Sharp, chancellor of The Texas A&M University System. “I am especially proud of Aerospace Hyperloop, a finalist representing Texas A&M University and its world-class engineering program in the next round.”

“World-changing events such as this do not happen often, so to be able to say one took place at Texas A&M is truly special,” said Michael K. Young, president of Texas A&M. “It is our hope that everyone who participated uses the momentum from this historic meeting of young innovators to go out into the world and continue to create and innovate. This weekend’s competition proves the future is in very good hands with such an inspiring and talented group of young people, many of whom are right here at Texas A&M. Congratulations to all the young men and women and their teams headed to California and that certainly includes Texas A&M’s Aerospace Hyperloop team.”

“The future of engineering was on display this weekend in College Station,” said M. Katherine Banks, vice chancellor and dean of Texas A&M Engineering. “We challenge our students to step outside their comfort zones and approach engineering problems in novel ways. The young men and women at this competition definitely accomplished that, and presented design and technical concepts that were well beyond anyone’s expectations.”

Technical awards were also awarded to student teams whose designs displayed outstanding technical merit in subsystem and design.

Subsystems

Judging criteria included innovation and uniqueness of subsystem design, full Hyperloop system applicability and economics; level of design detail; strength of supporting analysis and tests; and quality of documentation and presentation.

• Best Overall Subsystem Award
  Auburn University Hyperloop Team, Auburn University
• Special Innovation Award in the Other Subsystem
  RIT Imaging, Rochester Institute of Technology
• Levitation Subsystem Technical Excellence Award
  TAMU Aerospace Hyperloop, Texas A&M
• Braking Subsystem Technical Excellence Award
  VicHyper, RMIT University
• Propulsion/Compression Subsystem Technical Excellence Award
  Makers UPV Team, Universitat Politència de Valencia (Spain)
• Safety Subsystem Technical Excellence Award
  UWashington Hyperloop, University of Washington
• Subsystem Technical Excellence Award
  Hyped, University of Edinburgh
• Subsystem Technical Excellence Award
  Conant Hyperloop Club, Conant High School (Hoffman States, Illinois)
• Subsystem Innovation Award
  Ryerson’s International Hyperloop Team, Ryerson University (Canada)

Design Only Awards

• Top Design Concept Award
  Makers UPV Team, Universitat Politència de Valencia (Spain)
• Design Concept Innovation Award
  Nova Hyperloop Team, University of Cairo
• Design Concept Innovation Award
  Auburn University Hyperloop Team, Auburn University

The Hyperloop, a high-speed ground transport concept, was first proposed by SpaceX and Tesla Motors co-founder Elon Musk in 2013. With the Hyperloop, passengers could travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco in under 30 minutes, radically transforming the speed and safety of passenger mass transit.