VCU’s Hyperloop Team Plans Their Strategy For 2019
Photo by Dan Wagner, VCU Engineering Marketing & Communications. Used with permission.
RICHMOND, Va. — Hyperloop at VCU, Virginia Commonwealth University’s team that made it to the finals in the 2018 SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition, is already tweaking their approach for next year's competition.
Arthur Chadwick, founder and president of Hyperloop at VCU, created the team in fall of 2017 as a way to expand his understanding of engineering for his courses. He wanted to work on a project that incorporated engineering principles and innovation and have an impact on people’s lives.
“One of the biggest things I care about is Elon Musk’s vision for the future of humanity and being able to do something that could impact that type of vision,” Chadwick said. “The Hyperloop is just another one of those projects.”
The Hyperloop, conceptualized by Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, is a form of high-speed rail travel using massive pressurized tubes to propel pods at speeds of up to 700 mph. The Hyperloop Pod Competition was created by SpaceX in 2015 as a way to encourage innovation by challenging students to build the fastest and most efficient pods.
Concept design of Hyperloop at VCU's pod design. Used with permission of Arthur Chadwick.
Prototype designs are judged on top speed and deceleration without crashing. The tube where the top three finalists test their designs resides at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California and measures roughly one mile long and six feet in diameter.
For Chadwick, this is the next step in revolutionizing the way we travel.“Hyperloop is the transportation of the future,” he said. “Imagine traveling from Richmond to Washington D.C., in as little as nine minutes through these tubes connecting cities.”
The VCU Hyperloop team was among the top 20 finalists in the 2018 competition which had out of more than 600 entries from all across the world. They were also one of nine teams from the U.S. to make it to the finals. Unfortunately, they were not one of the top three teams to test their pod in the Hyperloop vacuum tube.
Looking to the future Chadwick says the the core team is being more selective in their applications for next competition. The goal is to have a total of 35 team members with immense drive and are willing to learn new things. Chadwick said this is more can be more important than an applicant’s field of study because they want people who are going to put in the hard work to push the team farther.
Hyperloop at VCU also has more time to fund raise and test their design. Even though the team doubled their budget from last year, they’re contending with groups with million dollar pods. To Chadwick, the passion of the team is what sets it apart from other competitors with larger teams and more resources.
“The biggest thing we have is our momentum,” Chadwick said. “Founding in fall 2017 from nothing we were able to research, design, fund raise and build a fully built prototype pod, go to SpaceX headquarters, become top 20 internationally with 20 students and 2 faculty members. That was a pretty big success for us.”