The University of California-Irvine engineering team is just one out of the thirty university and engineering research teams gearing up for this weekend's competition at the SpaceX Hawthorne site. Prototypes from around the world will converge in one place to test the human-scale transportation pods.

This weekend, the world will see the best built pod that will fit into Elon Musk's Hyperloop transportation vision. When Elon Musk sent out a challenge to the world, especially to university students and research teams, to create a high-speed, ground transport system, hundreds answered. But only a few made it to the next round.

The University of California-Irvine engineering team, or the "HyperXite" team, is ready to take their prototype to the 1.25 km track on Sunday, as reported by the Orange County Business Journal. During the weekend competition, the pods will be evaluated for stability, speed, braking and smoothness. And the UCI team is ready for it.

With a team of 50 students from the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and the Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Sciences, they are going to present a light weight, carbon fiber-made pod that can levitate and carry passengers at high speeds safely.

Patricio Guerrero is the team captain of HyperXite and he works with a team of diverse individuals. They envision a pod that can fit 28 people which can rapidly take people away from the stress of rush hour traffic. All for a price of $20 per ticket. It also considers the strength of the pod when it comes to withstanding harsh weather conditions.

In 2016, the HyperXite team placed fifth at the Hyperloop design competition. They are considered to be the highest of any California school to qualify. The team's vision is to revolutionize transportation while aiming for a clean and safe future, as featured in HyperXite. This lines up with Elon Musk's own vision of the future.

Watch the HyperXite team in action in the video below:

Read more
Tags University of California-Irvine, Hyperloop, SpaceX, Elon Musk, Transportation, Engineering, Technology