The EPFLoop team is ready to race
© 2018 Alban Kakulya
The EPFLoop team is in the United States where, on Sunday, it will take part in the Hyperloop Pod Competition being organized by the founder of SpaceX. The team hopes its pod will be the fastest to race down a 1.5-kilometer track at speeds expected to reach several hundred kilometers per hour.
After months of hard work, they’re finally on the home stretch. The students on the EPFLoop team are currently headed to California where they will see how their lightning-fast pod stacks up against the competition. EPFL President Martin Vetterli will be on hand to cheer the students on in this extraordinary challenge. The race will be held on 22 July in Hawthorne, California.
EPFL’s team labored day and night during this final week of testing, and they now feel that their chances are “very good.” Throughout the project, they have been able to call on the support of Mario Paolone, a professor in EPFL’s Distributed Electrical Systems Laboratory.
The EPFLoop team is one of only two to qualify for this year’s competition without having taken part in the previous year’s event. The two dozen teams they will face have already proven their mettle by beating out 5,000 other competitors. The EPFLoop team is nevertheless confident as it heads into the race.
You can follow the team through race day on EPFL’s social media or on EPFLoop’s Twitter account and Facebook page.
