These Students Built A Working Hyperloop (A Very Tiny One)

'What is this? A Hyperloop for ants!?'

Elon Musk’s Hyperloop is an idea as ambitious as it is fantastical. A train that travels at 760 mph through a pressurized tube is a hard sell, even with it gracing the latest cover of *Popular Science magazine. So it’s pretty cool to see a real, working version — albeit in miniature. Engineering students at the University of Illinois recently made their very own, tiny Hyperloop model (1:24 scale) as part of a senior design project, Motherboard reports.

Watch it in action below:

The model is less a proof of concept and more a very similar small-scale design. The metal pod inside rides on metal bearing instead of air, so there’s much more friction than in an ideal, full-sized Hyperloop. And this one fits in a room, which means some tighter turns than an ideal straight-shot transit line. So: not a working Hyperloop yet, but a fun Hyperloop-like simulation. Now, how about a real one?

Motherboard

 

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Kelsey D. Atherton

Contributor, Tech

Kelsey D. Atherton is a military technology journalist who has contributed to Popular Science since 2013. He covers uncrewed robotics and other drones, communications systems, the nuclear enterprise, and the technologies that go into planning, waging, and mitigating war.