Hacking Transportation at a Grand Scale
I am a hacker. I attend Hackathons. I make software hacks. When most of us say “Let’s Hack!”, we usually think of building the next app: a cross between Snapchat and Yik Yak, controlling a drone with a Myo, or some other crazy idea. Most of us sit at our laptop for 36 hours at a Hackathon, trying to figure out why our code won’t compile. We then present our demos, running on Red Bull and Soylent, to some random judges, hoping to win a free Oculus Rift.
But now I’m doing something different. Way different.
Instead of spending the usual 36 hours, I’ve spent 6 months working on a once in a lifetime opportunity. And it’s not just me, I’m supported by a team of 30 other like-minded individuals each with outstanding technical skills. RUMD Loop is a collaboration of Rutgers and University of Maryland students competing in SpaceX’s Hyperloop competition. We are working hard to build a pod that could change transportation forever.
What is it?
For some background info, if cars changed at the rate of transistors, they would be flying. The transportation industry has been relatively stagnant in the past few years. Not much has changed between how we travel now when compared how we traveled back in the 60’s. We still take fossil fuel guzzling cars over short distances. We hop on a slow, expensive train when it’s convenient. We take an expensive plane when it’s too far to drive. Hyperloop is changing that. Hyperloop, in its original conception, is a very low-pressure tube, consisting of pods that travel between points A and B at speeds of up to 700 mph. It would take approximately 30 minutes to get between San Fransisco and Los Angeles, which usually takes about 6 hours to drive. Not only is this mode of transportation fast, but is also cheap to maintain once built. Elon Musk stated in his alpha paper that the average ticket price would be roughly $20 bucks. So let’s get this straight. Instead of paying for a quick, but expensive plane ticket, you can get on the Hyperloop and be at your destination 12 times faster than if you drove. You would spend a fraction of the cost of your plane ticket and you could easily day trip between two major cities. This type of technology can enhance life socially and economically. It can change the connectivity of the world we live in. And we’re building it. One of the world’s first Hyperloop pod prototypes.
What have we been doing?
Over the past 6 months, we have been working to perfect our design to impress the folks over at SpaceX and, hopefully, exceed their expectations. We have been working day in and day out to optimize the aerodynamic properties of the pod, to get our pod an efficient levitation system, to model a robust communications protocol complete with a perfected computer system and architecture, to make something unique out of ordinary technologies. We went from just two friends from our hometown to just over 30 people across two states in a matter of months. Just recently, our hard work paid off when our Preliminary Design got us accepted to the Final Design Weekend. There, we will present our design at Texas A&M in front of Tesla Engineers, SpaceX engineers, distinguished people in academia, and companies looking to sponsor the next revolution of transportation. It’s going to be nerve-wracking, to say the least.
This next month we will work even harder than before to complete our final design and have a shot at changing the world. We know we can do this, because we are persistent. We are hackers. We will stay up for 36 hours straight the night before the design is due if that is what it takes to make something we are proud of. We will do things others will not to achieve our goals. We are just like you.
How you can help
There’s currently two methods of getting involved and helping us change the future:
- If you go to the University of Maryland, contact Kyle Kaplan at kyle.kaplan1@gmail.com or if you go to Rutgers University — New Brunswick, contact Shreyas Hirday at shreyashirday@gmail.com and we’ll see how you can get involved with the nitty-gritty.
- Otherwise, you can donate to us at our GoFundMe. Donations will directly be used to buy materials and resources needed to design and build the pod. In the future, we might even consider acknowledging your donation by giving you special thanks in one way or another.
Conclusion
Transportation is important. Incredibly important. Just as the fast development of computers and software has enabled us to communicate ideas and compute data in ways that we have never thought before, transportation allows us to interconnect our physical world. Help us make Hyperloop possible. It’s about time we made the 21st century what it’s supposed to be.
