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A contest to showcase the fastest Hyperloop pod on SpaceX’s track in the US later this month has charged up a team of young engineers from India.
Hyperloop India, an entity of 60-odd students from eight colleges, is the only finalist from India, and the second team from Asia to build a Hyperloop pod for the competition in California. Christened Orcapod, the 4-metre-long and 300 kg capsule was built from scratch in four months in Bengaluru.
Inspired by Musk’s white paper on the technology, Sibesh Kar founded Hyperloop India, a multi-disciplinary multi-university think tank.
Aircraft-grade aluminium, which costs one-fourth of carbon fiber, was used to build the pod, said Prithvi Sankar, business development head at Hyperloop India. The team expects to clock nearly 400 km per hour at the Space X facility.
Hyperloop India will compete with 23 other teams between 25-27 August at Space X’s mile-long vacuum tube, where speed is the only criteria. Founded by Musk, SpaceX aims to revolutionise terrestrial transportation through Hyperloop transportation services.
Support also came in different forms and sources to help the engineers give shape to their long-nosed vehicle. WorkbenchProjects provided co-working space to the team members, Ripple Technologies gave space for building the pod, while Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation offered space for testing.
Kar said they are well aware that the competition is about building the fastest pod. Their focus has been on building a pod that can be scaled. This is one of the reasons it is the biggest and the cheapest, he said.
The team is also working with Hyperloop One, a company that is looking to commercialise Hyperloop, and is doing a case study to find out if the technology can be used in India. Kar said they plan to build a tube in India to test the pod.
Indian transportation needs a radical leapfrog, he said. He stressed that issues like last-mile and first-mile connectivity need to be addressed first before such a technology is brought to the country.
(This article was originally published in an arrangement with The Bloomberg Quint.)
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