This year’s Carnegie Mellon University Hyperloop team, which is using magnetic rather than air-pressure levitation, is poised this coming weekend to send its prototype Hyperloop pod flying down a vacuum tube as fast as a Formula 1 race car, in what could represent the future of mass transportation.
The 55-member team has been busy for more than a year, developing technology to accelerate and slow down a half-scale Hyperloop pod, all without a power source. This school year, after key engineering changes, the team finally will see how well its prototype works Friday through Sunday during the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition in Hawthorne, Calif. There, pod prototypes will be tested inside a 1.5-mile, low-pressure tube at speeds of up to 220 mph with an eventual goal of speeds of 700 mph.