Drexel Team Hoping To Design Transportation Of The Future Selected As Finalist In Weekend Competition
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Judges at Texas A&M picked Drexel University and 21 other teams to move on from the crowd of more than 100 competitors vying to design part of Hyperloop. That's the transportation concept that would zip you at near-supersonic speeds from one city to another.
"You're looking at a pod moving at about 700 miles per hour going from one city to another," said Drexel student team leader Freddy Wachter.
Wachter says their pod, the capsule in which you'll ride, is designed to move through the closed Hyperloop tube on a thin layer of air, not unlike a puck on an air hockey board.
"We're creating an environment where this pod can be the most efficient possible, and it has nothing to do with any of the air, any of the friction, and so forth, that you have to deal with if you're in a car or in a train."
The winning design comes from MIT, which uses magnetic levitation instead of air bearings.
The true test will come this summer, when the actual pods are built and put on the test track under construction at SpaceX in Southern California.
