A group of University of Wisconsin-Madison students are gearing up to compete in the 2019 SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition.
Badgerloop is a student organization at UW-Madison that competes in the annual SpaceX competition. The competition has one goal: Make your pod go as fast as possible.
SpaceX started the Hyperloop Pod Competition in 2015 to accelerate development of the hyperloop and to encourage student innovation.
Badgerloop attended the first competition in January 2016, a Design Weekend where teams from around the world shared their pod designs. At the subsequent competitions, the top teams turned their designs into functioning vehicles and raced them on SpaceX’s Hyperloop Test Track in Hawthorne, California.
Badgerloop earned innovation awards at both the January 2017 and August 2017 competitions, but failed to bring home an award at the third competition, which took place in July 2018.
Now, they’re hard at work on their latest design with one goal for the 2019 competition: to be the first American team to do a full vacuum run on the test track.
Competitors come from all over the world, including the Technical University of Munich, home of WARR Hyperloop. WARR Hyperloop won top prize three years in a row, and last year set a new record by breaking 280 mph.
In October, Coherent Marketing Insights, a market research and insights firm, identified Badgerloop as a major player globally in the design and development of hyperloop technology.
Badgerloop announced earlier this month that its technical teams were finalizing design plans for its pod. There’s almost always a member of the team working at their headquarters inside the UW Mechanical Engineering Building, communications lead Kevin Chukel said.
“Our catchphrase is ‘loop is life,’” Chukel said. “If we’re not eating, sleeping, studying or working, we’re doing Badgerloop.”
Students from a variety of educational backgrounds comprise the Badgerloop team. Chukel is double-majoring in communications arts and computer science, and the team’s Operations Director is studying biology and sociology. Most of the students major in engineering, and use Badgerloop to put into practice the theories they study.
“It’s given me a huge educational opportunity,” said Badgerloop President Mark Swartz. “As an organization, that’s what our mission statement is focused on.”
