COLLEGE STATION, Texas – Texas A&M University officials said 22 student teams will head to California this summer to test their design prototype at the world's first Hyperloop Test Track.
The university said more than 115 student engineering teams representing 27 U.S. states and 20 countries were at Texas A&M University this weekend participating in SpaceX's Hyperloop Pod Competition Design Weekend.
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The teams had presented their plans for the overall pod design and were judged based on a variety of criteria, which included innovation and uniqueness of design, full Hyperloop system applicability and economics, level of design detail, strength of supporting analysis and tests, feasibility for test tract competition, and quality of documentation and presentation, officials said.
"Congratulations to the finalists and all the student teams who competed in the first-ever SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition," said Chancellor John Sharp. "I am especially proud of Aerospace Hyperloop, a finalist representing Texas A&M University and its world-class engineering program in the next round."
According to the university, the top five student teams for the design and build category were:
- Best Overall Design Award
MIT Hyperloop Team, Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Pod Innovation Award
Delft Hyperloop, Delft University of Technology (The Netherlands) - Pod Technical Excellence Award
Badgerloop, University of Wisconsin-Madison - Pod Technical Excellence Award
Hyperloop at Virginia Tech, Virginia Tech - Pod Technical Excellence Award
HyperXite, University of California Irvine
Other teams that will advance to the competition weekend in California include:
- rLoop (non-student team)
- uWaterloo Hyperloop, University of Waterloo
- UWashington Hyperloop, University of Washington
- University of Toronto, University of Toronto
- RUMD Loop, University of Maryland and Rutgers University
- GatorLoop, University of Florida
- Team HyperLynx, University of Colorado-Denver
- Hyperloop UC, University of Cincinnati
- USCB Hyperloop, University of California-Santa Barbara
- bLoop, University of California-Berkeley
- TAMU Aerospace Hyperloop, Texas A&M
- WARR Hyperloop, Technical University of Munich (Germany)
- Purdue Hyperloop Design Team, Purdue University
- Codex, Oral Roberts University
- Lehigh Hyperloop, Lehigh University
- Keio Alpha, Keio University
- Drexel Hyperloop, Drexel University
- Carnegie Mellon Hyperloop, Carnegie-Mellon University
"World-changing events such as this do not happen often, so to be able to say one took place at Texas A&M is truly special," said Michael K. Young, president of Texas A&M. "It is our hope that everyone who participated uses the momentum from this historic meeting of young innovators to go out into the world and continue to create and innovate. This weekend's competition proves the future is in very good hands with such an inspiring and talented group of young people, many of whom are right here at Texas A&M. Congratulations to all the young men and women and their teams headed to California and that certainly includes Texas A&M’s Aerospace Hyperloop team."
"The future of engineering was on display this weekend in College Station," said M. Katherine Banks, vice chancellor and dean of Texas A&M Engineering. "We challenge our students to step outside their comfort zones and approach engineering problems in novel ways. The young men and women at this competition definitely accomplished that, and presented design and technical concepts that were well beyond anyone’s expectations."
The university said technical awards were also awarded to student teams whose designs displayed outstanding technical merit in subsystem and design.
To learn more and to see other groups that were awarded, click here.