When SpaceX's founder, Elon Musk, told the world of his vision of a pod and tube-like transportation system, a lot of students, researchers and engineers jumped at the chance. The first Hyperloop competition was the design phase. That was when several teams detailed their vision of a pod that can cut the time between Los Angeles to San Francisco in less than 30 minutes.
The next round involved the actual building of the pod and testing the pod. Students from Cornell spent their weekends, breaks and summer building the pod after finding out that they are coming in for the next round.
The team built an 18 foot pod that uses scuba tanks to force compressed air downward, as reported by Cornell. The pod floats on a cushion of air above the track.
They competed against teams that used magnetic levitation and other systems. Cornell joined OpenLoop, a team of sixty people that included other students from Princeton, Harvey Mudd College, University of Michigan, Memorial University of Newfoundland and Northeastern University.
According to Nick Parker, they had to make some last minute fixes before heading to the competition but they were all happy that it worked. Cornell's pod passed the 100-point checklist during the Hyperloop competition at the Hawthorne site. They also did great in the design aspect even though there was a hiccup during the trial inside the tube.
From the design competition that held over 1,000 students from 120 colleges around the world, the second round brought in a total of 30 teams to realize Elon Musk's vision of a "fifth mode of transportation." Into the second round, not a lot were able to compete because some teams could not get past the technical tests involved to reach the final round, as reported by The Verge.
Watch the Openloop video below where the team gets ready for testing:
