rLoop was born on Reddit, a group dedicated to bringing Elon Musk’s idea for a 5th mode of transport, the Hyperloop, into reality. The team has gathered an impressive 300 engineers from more than 15 countries around the world. With such a geographically diversed workforce, rLoop is leveraging modern way of working to stay in contact and evolve the development of their pod. From Slack for private conversations, Trello for project management, Google Drive for file storage and sharing and Reddit to seek user feedback.
The group have launched a crowdfunding campaign on March 7th, 2016 to raise money for the construction of the rPod prototype which they plan on running a trial later this year, at SpaceX’s Hawthorne facility.
It’s motivating to imagine a future where it’d be possible to travel from Sydney to Melbourne in minutes. This could dramatically change our current approach to how we build cities. Fast, affordable travel opens the door to a live anywhere, work anywhere nirvana. Given the current ‘housing crisis’ in our major cities, this is certainly one forward leaning solution to the problem.
The Hyperloop concept includes an elevated track, wrapped in a vacuum tube to reduce air resistance to allow passenger and cargo pods to be propelled at up to 1,200km/h using sustainable and cost-efficient energy. It’s bold, its wild and it scientifically it checks out, but that theory needs to be tested to become a reality.
To accelerate its development, SpaceX is hosting a competition for engineering teams to design their own hyperloop pods and test them at their facility in Hawthorne, California. The non-profit, rLoop, is entering this competition and need your help.
The rLoop team have turned to crowd-funding to pay for the costs associated with creating a prototype pod. This is a one of a kind pod that meets the aerodynamic and physical requirements of the competition, but naturally, like anything on-off, does cost money to construct.
At the time of writing, the project has 284 backers and rLoop have already raised $22,716, 38% of their $60,000 goal. The campaign has 23 days left, so get after it and support them.
Here’s where you come in. You can support the project by purchasing t-shirts and special perks such as having your name or logo on the pod, or even dressing up and naming the test dummy! You’ll also get that warm glow inside your heart for knowing you helped humanity advance to the next level of transportation.
In order to win the competition the pod needs to perform the mission of safe, cost-effective, and efficient high speed transit over the length of the Hyperloop test track while providing a comfortable cabin for a self-contained flight data recorder and passenger dummy.
rLoop are hard at work on raising money to help manufacture the pod before the competition and are looking for public and corporate support to make the future a reality.
Go support rLoop through their Indegogo campaign or visit the website to get involved.
