Its not happening in a galaxy far, far, away. Its happening in Hawthorne, California at the SpaceX headquarters. A team from MIT will be racing their pod.

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Hyperloop

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The Hyperloop is an idea Elon Musk had back in 2013. In 2015 Elon announced a contest for university students and independent engineering teams to design and build scale models of Hyperloop pods.

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Elon has built a one-mile long vacuum tube Hyperloop test test track next to SpaceX's headquarters. The test track is large enough to fit people but the first round of races will have dummies on-board the pods for safety reasons.

SpaceX sees the Hyperloop being a faster, safer, and more sustainable mode of transportation for the future. More information is available at SpaceX's Hyperloop Pod Competition website.

The Race

The race is a race against the clock. Since there is only one test track, teams will not be racing against each other at the same time.

The race is a closed event to be held on Sunday, 29 January 2017, from 1-5pm PST. There may be a live stream of the events, but that has not been confirmed.

SpaceX is planning to host another event this summer (summer of 2017) that will focus on maximum speed of the pods.

The First Contestant

More than 100 teams submitted their designs for evaluation. The designs were judged early last year, 2016. The teams were evaluated and about 30 teams made the first cut. Those teams will be the ones battling it out on the SpaceX test track.

The first contestant in the Hyperloop pod race will be MIT. Here is a video about the contest and the MIT pod.

Sources and Full Articles

SpaceX Hosts Weekend Hyperloop Pod Race For University Students In Hawthorne [Video], University Herald, 28 January 2017

Winning MIT design for Hyperloop passenger pod revealed by Elon Musk, INDEPENDENT, 4 February 2016

THE OFFICIAL SPACEX HYPERLOOP POD COMPETITION

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