CU Denver Engineering Students Compete In Hyperloop Pod Design
DENVER (CBS4)- Students from the University of Colorado Denver are up for a big honor. They're competing with much bigger schools with more funding to design a hyperloop pod.
The CU Denver Hyperlynx team was up bright and early Friday morning to showcase their work. They are participating in the 2019 Space X Hyperloop Pod Competition.
The challenge is hosted by Elon Musk and Space X. Engineering students from schools across the globe are working to develop a pod for a Hyperloop transportation system, basically a low pressure tube with a pod in it that can transport people really fast.
"The idea is to further the development of the Hyperloop as a transportation system," says CU Denver senior Andrew Gras. "Putting those vehicles in a low pressure environment allows you to go higher speeds with roughly the same amount of power by reducing the air resistance involved in the situation."
A lot of these engineers will be graduating soon, but their work will continue. CU Denver is one of 21 teams who have advanced to the final stage of the competition. That means they will test and work on their pod in July at the finals in California.
Gras says their goal is to get their pod in the Hyperloop tube, "If we get the vehicle working and prove to them that it works, we get into the tube and do a high speed run. That's a win no matter how fast we go."
They will be among some elite company. Teams from MIT, UC Davis and the Technical University of Munich will be competing with them. Those teams have huge budgets which makes CU Denver's work even more outstanding. They did more with less.
"Sometimes having the best design comes down to how well you implement at a cost effective scale," said CU Denver senior Aaron Zapiler.
If you think that these Colorado scientists are rooting against their counterparts- you're wrong. The competition is about breaking barriers and learning together.
"There's no inter school rivalry once you show up to the competition. You're trying to beat physics not the other team," said CU Denver senior Jeff Stanek.