Hyperloop pod competition

The Hyperloop Pod Competition is an incentive prize competition sponsored by SpaceX that is being held in 2015–2017 where a number of student and non-student teams are participating to design—and for some, build—a subscale prototype transport vehicle to demonstrate technical feasibility of various aspects of the Hyperloop concept.

There are two judging phases in the 2016 competition: a design competition that was held in January 2016 and an on-track competition to be held 27–29 January 2017. The competition is open to participants globally, although all judging will occur in the United States.

30 of the 115 teams that submitted designs in January 2016 have been selected to build hardware to compete on a sponsored Hyperloop test track in mid-2016. There were more than 1,000 applicants at earlier stages of the competition.

After the first year competition is over, further sponsored competitions are expected.

The outline of the original Hyperloop concept was made public in August 2013 by the release of a preliminary—or alpha level—design document by Elon Musk, with substantial design assistance from an informal group of engineers at both Tesla Motors and SpaceX who worked on the conceptual foundation and modelling of Hyperloop. The preliminary design called for a 2.3–3.4-meter-diameter (90–132 in) steel tube, operating in partial vacuum (nearly airless), utilizing pressurized vehicle "pods" to carry passengers or cargo that would ride on an air cushion driven by linear induction motors and air compressors. The alpha design included a notional route running from the Los Angeles region to the San Francisco Bay Area, paralleling the Interstate 5 corridor for most of its length, so that preliminary economic analysis might be done on the concept. Responses to the design paper release included: "a flash of brilliance" and "hypercool" to "nothing new here" to "hype", "another science-fiction dream," and "completely impractical."

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