We’ve heard a lot about Hyperloop in the two years since Elon Musk first released the concept, but he haven’t really seen much in the way of actual progress until recently. Plenty of companies and organizations have laid out plans for testing out the experimental technology, but now Musk’s own SpaceX is hosting a competition that it hopes will find the perfect design for Hyperloop’s transport pods, which will be tested on a small Hyperloop track.
Elon Musk’s Hyperloop pod contest is moving right along. SpaceX, which is hosting the competition, recently published details about the one-mile Hyperloop test track it plans to build at its headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif. The Hyperloop, of course, is the futuristic mode of transportation that consists of passenger pods traveling through tubes at speeds of more than 500 miles per hour. In June, Musk announced the competition, which aims to find the perfect pod design. As part of the contest’s final round, selected participants will have a chance to test out their pod on a sub-scale Hyperloop track. According to a company document, the test track will be about six feet in diameter and one mile in length. It will also have a 12-foot long “foam pit” at the end of the track in case a pod’s braking system should fail. While the contest technically started in September when entrants had to meet their first submission deadline, the first real contest event will be Design Weekend, which will be hosted in January at Texas A&M University.