Indian American Lakshya Jain was part of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology team that was victorious in the first round of the SpaceX Hyperloop Design contest.
The Jan. 30 contest at Texas A&M University required teams to create a Hyperloop, which is a high-speed transportation concept imagined by Tesla Motors and SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk.
Jain and his graduate student teammates beat out more than 100 other teams from around the world, claiming best overall design.
The roughly-24 member MIT team is captained by Philippe Kirschen. Collectively, they have been working since last fall to create the design.
The team is gathering support from all over MIT. Douglas P. Hart of the mechanical engineering department is facilitating the team members’ work on the project for credit as part of his Engineering Systems Development course. The Edgerton Center has provided work and machining space, administrative support and advising.
The final design of the Hyperloop is roughly 2.5 meters long and weighs 250 kgs. Kirschen added in an MIT report that it has the aerodynamic feel of a bobsled.
Now the design needs to be made on a larger scale. Kirschen, in the MIT report, said the Hyperloop would reach speeds “in excess of 100 meters per second.”
The larger scales will be tested, albeit with no passengers on board, in the next phase of the contest. Each large-scale submission is due by mid-May.