UWindsor’s Hyperloop team is one of 52 teams worldwide to advance in a competition that encourages innovations in high-speed transportation.

The team formed in 2017 and hasn’t stopped working towards its goal of creating an electrically powered linear induction motor to propel a levitating pod through a sealed tube at speeds over 500 km/h. The group’s initial design work has helped them advance in SpaceX’s Hyperloop Pod Competition.

“We’re very dedicated to this,” says Stefan Sing, the team lead and founder who’s in his third year of mechanical engineering. “We’ve invested heavily in the linear induction motor and haven’t stopped making revisions. The team has been doing a stellar job.”

The team of 25 meets five times a week and ranges from undergraduate to graduate students studying mechanical, electrical and industrial engineering, and computer science.

The competition requires students to create functional high-speed pod prototypes. Pods must be designed and tested to propel themselves to within 100 feet of the far end of the tube before stopping.

“We’ve created an overview of the pod we want to build using first principals and some basic modeling,” Sing says. "We've also partnered with St. Clair College to deliver what we feel will be a successful and competitive pod."

The team will present their design report to SpaceX officials in February. If the UWindsor team is successful, it will join approximately 22 teams in Hawthorne, California to compete with a working prototype in the 2019 Hyperloop Pod Competition at SpaceX headquarters.

Sing says the team is always recruiting and encourages students from all disciplines to email uwinloop@uwindsor.ca if they’re interested in joining.

Learn more aobut UWinLoop.