A UW-Madison team that designed a pod for transporting people at futuristic speed finished third in SpaceX’s first worldwide Hyperloop competition, hosted at Texas A&M University Jan. 29 and 30.
More than a hundred different teams came from 27 different states and 20 different countries to design a conceptual transportation system. UW-Madison’s team BadgerLoop was unique because it consisted of mostly undergraduates, while other teams largely had graduate students, according to a university release.
The goal of the competition is to design a system that allows passengers to travel at 760 mph, which would allow them to travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco in only 30 minutes, according to the release.
BadgerLoop harnessed magnets to create a hovering pod for travel; they attached spinning wheels surrounded by powerful magnets to control the speed of the pod.
The concept scored well with a panel of SpaceX, Tesla and university judges. After placing high at the SpaceX competition, UW-Madison senior and BadgerLoop co-president Brett Sjostrom said he was excited for continuing to work on the Hyperloop concept.
“BadgerLoop has the ability to make an impact in the world,” Sjostrom said in the release. “And we look forward to innovating transportation when we test out our pod on the track in California over the summer.”
