Writing for Scientific American, Larry Greenemeier explores the pod the MIT Hyperloop team developed to compete in the upcoming SpaceX Hyperloop competition. “One of the most interesting parts of the Hyperloop is the attempt to go significantly faster than any other type of land travel,” says MIT team member and graduate student Greg Monahan.
In this video, Dave Lee reports for the BBC News from the MIT Hyperloop team’s unveiling event, during which the team revealed the prototype pod they designed for the SpaceX Hyperloop competition. Lee explains that the MIT team developed a “droplet-shaped pod [that] uses magnets to lift itself off the aluminum track, reducing friction.”
PBS NewsHour correspondent Miles O’Brien visits MIT to see the Hyperloop team in action as they work on building a prototype pod that would travel on a high-speed transportation system. O’Brien explains that the MIT team is “testing arrays of common magnets that would levitate the pod over an aluminum track.”
Boston Globe reporter Steve Annear speaks with Prof. Amos Winter about this year’s 2.007 robot competition, during which student-built robots will compete on an American Revolution-themed course. “I think this is one of the most real-life engineering experiences the students can get,” says Winter.
Boston Magazine reporter Jamie Ducharme writes that a team of MIT students has developed an app that provides shoppers with a nutrition receipt for grocery store purchases. The app is based on an algorithm that could “parse through data from the USDA’s National Nutrient Database, assessing the nutritional value of each item in the shopper’s cart.”
Christian Science Monitor reporter Jack Detsch writes about the “Cambridge 2 Cambridge” hackathon, which brought together students from MIT and Cambridge University to hack websites and discover built-in vulnerabilities. “It’s not a law of nature that machines are insecure,” says CSAIL’s Howard Shrobe. This hackathon “is the first step of piquing curiosity to fix it.”
Wendy Koch of National Geographic spoke with members of the MIT Hyperloop team about their work transforming their design for a levitating pod that could transport people at hundreds of miles an hour into an operational prototype. “It’s a great opportunity to learn and possibly to change the future of transportation,” says project manager and graduate student John Mayo.
MIT Hyperloop team members Philippe Kirschen and Sabrina Ball speak with Mike Nikitas of NECN about the team’s approach to the SpaceX competition. “We wanted to design a pod that was safe, scalable and feasible,” explains Kirschen.” We really focused on the technology that we thought we could develop… that could possibly be applied to a full-scale hyperloop.”
Nidhi Subbaraman writes for BetaBoston about “Cambridge 2 Cambridge,” an international cybersecurity challenge that will take place this spring between researchers from MIT CSAIL and the University of Cambridge. Prof. Howard Shrobe explained that the contest will take the form of a virtual “capture the flag” contest.
Wired reporter Alex Davies speaks with graduate student Phillipe Kirschen, team captain of the MIT Hyperloop team, about the team’s strategy. Kirschen explains that the team is focused on developing a “pod that is gonna go really fast, that is gonna levitate, that can have good attitude control, and that can brake well.”
Graduate student Chris Merian, chief engineer for MIT's Hyperloop team, speaks with Radio Boston’s Meghna Chakrabarti about the team’s success in the Hyperloop contest. Merian says the team saw the competition as a, “really cool engineering challenge that we are really passionate about, and seeing our hundreds of hours of work rewarded like that was really, really nice.”
Popular Science’s Priscilla Mosqueda writes about the team of MIT students that won the first round of the SpaceX competition. “We had a clear message: our pod was about making something safe, stable and feasible,” explains team captain and graduate student Philippe Kirschen.
A team of MIT students won the first round of the SpaceX Hyperloop competition for their design of a pod that could transport passengers on a conceptual high-speed transportation system. MIT and other top teams will build and test their designs at the Hyperloop Test Track in California, reports the Associated Press.
Boston Herald reporter Laurel Sweet writes that a team of MIT students has won the first round of the SpaceX Hyperloop contest. “Powered by renewable energy, Hyperloop aims to rocket floating passenger pods through elevated tubes at nearly the speed of sound,” writes Sweet.
MIT students captured the top spot in the first round of the SpaceX Hyperloop competition for their design for passenger pods that could travel on a high-speed transportation system, reports David Morris for Fortune.