Start Planning Your Design for SpaceX’s New Hyperloop Competition This Month

Today, Monday, June 15, 2005, SpaceX announced the start of their competition for designing and building pods for Hyperloop. It should begin this month and appears to target university students, university engineering and engineering-related organizations and clubs, and independent engineering teams. Even so, the Hyperloop competition is open to everyone all around the world. Details of the competition are also listed here.

What is Hyperloop?

Hyperloop is Elon Musk’s theoretical transportation design concept first introduced in August 2013. In early stages as of yet, it plans to revolutionize the world, creating an automobile high-speed rail like the world has not seen. Musk offered the concept in the form of an an open-source document. He described that this transportation design concept would incorporate reduced-pressure vacuum tubes to transport anything or anyone between Los Angelos and San Francisco in about 30 minutes. What bullet train?

SpaceX Competition in Support of Transportation Needs

It turns out, SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket making company, and Musk are not actually affiliated with Hyperloop companies. They support Hyperloop and created this competition in order to help this concept come alive, recognizing there’s a place for it in the world. SpaceX proclaims on the competition webpage that their interests lie “in helping accelerate development of a functional Hyperloop prototype.”

The Future of Transportation is in Hands of Anyone

One rule of the competition is that people are not to ride in any of the pods during it. Private companies may choose which teams to sponsor and invest in (similar to the races much?). They will have the chance to learn more at a design weekend at Texas A&M University, set to take place in January 2016. There has not been much said on the prize for the winner, but glory is sure to be one of them. In reality though, this provides a stellar opportunity to the ambitious engineers and designers who believe they have what it takes to win.

SpaceX is set to build (at undisclosed costs) a 1-mile test track for the competition right beside their headquarters in Hawthorne, California. As a bonus, Musk’s company might also include an example pod but not competitively, of course.

The Official SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition starts this month and ends September 15th, 2015. So get working!

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