Over the last week, 27 teams have been on site at SpaceX in preparation for this weekend’s Hyperloop Pod Competition just outside SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, CA. The purpose of the competition is to help accelerate the development of a functional Hyperloop prototype and encourage student innovation by challenging university students to design and build the best Hyperloop pod. This competition is the first of its kind anywhere in the world.

Teams have put their pods through a litany of tests over the last week in hopes of making it into the Hyperloop test track itself. The competition timeline is driven by a team’s ability to complete certain milestones versus a set schedule, so for the purposes of competition coverage. SpaceX will livestream the main events as they happen.

Get Ready to Race

Based on the high-quality submissions and overwhelming enthusiasm surrounding the competition, SpaceX is moving forward with a second installment of the competition: Hyperloop Pod Competition II, which will culminate in a second competition in Summer 2017 at SpaceX’s Hyperloop test track. Hyperloop Competition II will be focused on a single criterion: maximum speed. The second competition is open to new student teams interested in competing on the test track, as well as to existing student teams who have already built and tested Pods to further refine their designs.

Note: This competition is a SpaceX event. SpaceX has no affiliation with any Hyperloop companies, including, but not limited to, those frequently referenced by the media. 

Check out some of the Hyperloop Pod designs that have been proposed so far in our photogallery