In August 2013, Elon Musk published a white paper on the concept of hyperloop technology. The document was met with mixed reviews, but Musk expressed interest in sponsoring a competition to further develop the technology. On June 15th, 2015, Musk’s company SpaceX announced plans to hold the first SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition at the company headquarters in Hawthorne, CA. The Competition was structured around two elements: design submissions from universities across the world, and a mile-long vacuum run in Hawthorne to test the designs.
Badgerloop was founded in Fall 2015 with the goal of competing in Competition I. We were one of over 700 teams to submit initial designs and one of approximately 120 to be invited to the first phase of the Competition, known as “Design Weekend.” In January 2016, our design placed third in the world at this event, and we were invited to the second phase of the Competition. This was called “Competition Weekend”and took place in January2017. We received an Innovation Award from SpaceX for our unique design that emphasized the scalability of hyperloop technology. Competition I was a huge success for our organization: it showed that we could compete with some of the best technical universities in the world. It was also a success for SpaceX, because theCompetition generated a tremendous amount of interest in hyperloop technology. Based on these factors, Elon Musk announced plans for a second Competition in Summer 2017.
