Hyperloop Competition - What is it about?

Ever wished for something that could make you travel 7-hour long journey in less than an hour and for affordable prices? Ever wished for something that could help you avoid traffic while commuting? ‘Hyperloop’ is the answer to your questions. Tired from getting stuck in the traffic while commuting from one office to another, Elon Musk proposed the idea of Hyperloop in 2013.

Fig: Proposed pod design by Elon Musk and engineers and SpaceX

What he(Elon Musk) calls as the pod, would travel at 760 mph carrying 20 passengers at a time in a depressurized tube. The initial reaction for this idea was a negative one from the industry and the public. Many stating that it is impossible and scary, but Elon Musk was determined to see this through. Looking at his track record, he has often made the impossible possible, so we believed that there is still hope that Hyperloop will be achieved. Soon after researching the idea we started believing in it and thus our competition journey started.

Naturally, there were a million questions running through everyone’s minds. But the first step was to start small. To make more people aware of Hyperloop, Elon Musk through SpaceX started the Hyperloop pod competition in 2015, giving the bright minds of Universities all around the globe an opportunity to participate in the competition, give them a chance to make an impact on the future. To give them a Launchpad, he provided the world with a document what was called a white paper, describing the basic idea, the challenges that the participating teams could face while designing such a system.

The aim of the competition was to research, design, analyze and build a half scale pod. The top teams from competition 1 were able to test their pods in the test track built by SpaceX in Hawthorne, California late January 2017. The competition now is in its second version, the stakes are even higher, the competition is tougher but so is the determination of the people involved in making Hyperloop a success.

Figure: Elon Musk addressing the public ahead of the competition I

Ever since the idea was proposed, the world has not looked back. Hyperloop is one of the most trending ideas in the world right now with different firms looking to get involved in its creation. Hyperloop Transportation Technologies(HTT) and Hyperloop One are amongst a few which are moving as fast as ever getting the hyperloop up and running. US, UAE and India are on-board with the hyperloop while many other countries are pondering of getting on-board with the idea being implemented.

Figure: AZ Loop's proposed design

While there is still time for the hyperloop to come into our daily lives, it has already changed out team’s lives. To create our design of the hyperloop we put countless of hours in thinking, researching, challenging each other’s ideas, brainstorming and testing to finally get a fool proof design.