January 23, 2017
Waterloop: Canada’s only Hyperloop team heads to SpaceX competition
University of Waterloo’s student design team takes their high-speed pod to the SpaceX test track in Hawthorne, California
Waterloop - a student design team building a commuter pod to one day take you from Toronto to Montreal in 30 minutes - will test their prototype at the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod competition on January 27-29.
Waterloop’s technical lead Yazan Obeidi said he and another team member will be driving the prototype to SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California this week. They will compete against 23 finalists from around the world including the Massechusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.
“Even though the competition in California is this week, we’re just getting started,” said Obeidi. “We’ve learned so much from the last four months. You can’t put it into words; all the hands on experience.”
Team Waterloop members working on their Hyperloop pod, the Goose 1.
About 150 students from all six of Waterloo’s faculties have contributed to the Waterloop team. Obeidi said this week’s competition is just “the start of a new era for Waterloop.” The team will continue to develop their prototype in preparation for the next SpaceX competition in Summer 2017.
“That’s the great thing about being on a student design team. It’s not just about solving equations,” said Obeidi. “You go out and lay down 300 feet of track and find out what happens when you are only slightly off center,” says Obeidi. “You have to tear it down and build it again.”
Waterloo empowers students to go beyond. Learn more about Waterloop.
