The all astounding Hyperloop seems to be edging towards becoming a reality, as three teams of students have competed with their version of the superfast transport pod in a Hyperloop Pod Competition. The half scale pod designs were specially built to tread through the 1 km long SpaceX test track, and the competition saw 30 teams gather in for the final event. The team from Delft University took first prize with teams from MIT and WARR coming in second and third respectively.
The Hyperloop is the brainchild of the technology mogul Elon Musk, who proposed the use of transport ‘pods’ to carry 20-to-30 people through a 12-foot diameter tube at speeds of over 700 mph.
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The team from Delft University was ecstatic with the win,
‘We are very proud be the overall winner of the first hyperloop pod competition ever!’ said the team.
The Hyperloop Pod Competition was started by Musk himself to encourage people towards making ultra-fast transportation a reality. The competition made student teams from all over the world bring in their designs and technologies.
The pods used for the competition were half-size prototypes of the originally proposed design by Elon Musk, so they were too small to accommodate any passengers.
This competition will now continue into the second phase, with the participants looking to compete for getting the highest speed.
The winning Delft team’s design weighs 149 kilograms, which is very less when considering its 4.5-meters length and 1-metre height into account. The train uses permanent magnets which make it float above the track and results in a very low energy consumption.
The pod can accelerate up to 1200 kilometers per hour in a longer tube, which the team hopes to achieve in the next round of the contest.
The competition began in January 2016 with more than 100 university teams presenting their design concepts to a panel of judges, with only 30 teams moving onto the second phase.
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The Delft University of Technology from the Netherlands was the overall winner with the highest score out of all 30 teams, with the team from Technical University of Munich awarded for the fastest speed.
Students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison took a prize for their innovative design for its 15-foot-long, 2,100-pound pod called ‘Badgerloop’ which also entailed a virtual reality setup.
There are currently no real life Hyperloops anywhere in the world, although many companies are looking forward to making it a reality in places like India and Dubai.
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