VIDEO: For the winning Hyperloop Pod team, it was always about ‘maximum speed’
For the winning Hyperloop Pod team, it was always about ‘maximum speed’
But is it a car? A train? A future?
WARR Hyperloop members with the pod cap Photo by Zac Estrada / The Verge
by Zac Estrada@zacestrada Aug 29, 2017
WARR Hyperloop members with the pod cap Photo by Zac Estrada / The Verge
On Sunday afternoon, all three teams competing in the final round of the second edition of the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition were confident they’d perform well at the event held in Hawthorne, California.
Then WARR Hyperloop hit the button and quickly the contest ended. And Elon Musk did not hesitate to declare the 200-mph hyperloop pod from Munich the winner of the second competition.
It was an early favorite, after all. At just 176 pounds and with a super-efficient set of batteries, the WARR team from the University of Munich was there to go as fast as they could to win.
“THE COMPETITION IS MAXIMUM SPEED, SO WE LOOKED AT ALL OF OUR OPTIONS TO GET MAXIMUM SPEED”
“The whole idea for us is that we’re interested in competition,” said Martin Riedel, a 24-year-old engineer on the team. “And the competition is maximum speed, so we looked at all of our options to get maximum speed.”
Martin Riedel of WARR Hyperloop speaking with members of Hyperloop India Photo by Zac Estrada / The Verge
But what won? It was briefly described as an electric car by event organizers, but the sleek carbon fiber-topped pod had the exterior profile of a fast train.
“It’s like a mixture between a car and a train,” Riedel said of his team’s project. “It’s an electric motor on a wheel, but it pivots at one point and clamps down at the other.”
Martin Riedel of WARR Hyperloop speaking with members of Hyperloop India Photo by Zac Estrada / The Verge
The way the WARR pod’s slick shape allows it to stay down on the track allows more torque to be put down and greater performance, he said, up to 1.5 gs, rather than the typical 1.0.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/29/16214432/spacex-hyperloop-pod-competition-warr-elon-musk
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