Chicago Hyperloop is a newly formed student organization that was born in 2019. Our current team has a diversity of students coming from all STEM programs ranging from engineering to mathematics, working alongside students within the College of Business. The organization competes within the SpaceX competition that focuses in Hyperloop. Hyperloop is a state of the art form of transportation that was designed by SpaceX. It utilizes linear induction magnets and passive levitation to create a friction less environment for the Hyperloop pod to travel on. The specially enclosed tube creates a track which has low pressure on one end and high pressure on the respective other creating a vacuum chamber to "suck" or "pull" the pod more quickly. Our team strives to achieve the goal of successfully fabricating an efficient, but lightweight maglev Hyperloop pod to compete within the SpaceX competition.
The team currently utilizes Slack as our main form of communication. General body meetings are primarily on Mondays and specialized meetings for individual teams vary based on mission criticality and objective deadlines. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all meetings will be taking place on Zoom. A future tour event was set to take place in September, but further permission is required in order to ensure the safety of our team and fellow peers interested in joining.
The Pod ONE
As of 2019, Chicago Hyperloop has raised awareness of Hyperloop within the Chicago area. A collaboration between the Illinois Institute of Technology was formed in order to combine like minded individuals who all wanted to complete the same task at hand, compete at SpaceX. During this time, UIC and IIT designed, manufactured, and built 3 successful pods. One of which solely utilizes magnets for levitation. For testing purposes, a 27 meter test track was built within MakerSpace to run diagnostic and final tune up tests on the team's pods. The team plans to extend this test track and also finalize any minor adjustments that have been caused by vibrations or center of gravity weight displacement. The future of Chicago Hyperloop is reliant on the future students within UIC. If you want to contribute to this great organization, please feel to contact us!