Carnegie Mellon University students have made it to the final round of the SpaceX Hyperloop competition. In January 2015, 100 teams made their way to Texas A&M University to pitch their designs for the case of engineering a super-fast form of public transportation. Now, a year later, they have been whittled down to 22 semi-finalists, after 1,500 student engineers and engineering teams who were up for it thought about the future of public transport.
On the 14th of April, the students will be showing their designs off in hopes that CEO of SpaceX, Elon Musk, will crown a winner and move forward with building the Hyperloop.
“We do need sponsors to help fund building and transporting it,” says Rahul Iyer, who is working on corporate sponsorship and development for CMU Hyperloop. “The information reception will give us a chance to see what we’re working on and how far we’ve come, but also to see if we can attract more sponsors,” he told NextPittsburgh.
The team working on the project consists of 75 members that are all in engineering, designing or business roles in their lives outside of the Hyperloop team.
The team’s final design looks like a pod that would move through a tube. “It’s a really low-pressure environment, and the pod essentially levitates in the tube, kind of like a puck on an air hockey table,” says Iyer, talking to NextPittsurgh.
The Daily Mail reported that the Hyperloop would cost between US$200 to $300 million and would be past its first stage of completion in 2020. The speed they are trying to reach is 745mph (1,200km/h).
Courtesy: Carnegie Mellon University – High speed pod design