The 18-member team was among 30 teams selected to advance during the SpaceX Hyperloop pod competition at Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas.

With the selection, the team had the opportunity to build the design this summer at the first Hyperloop Test Track in California.

The team presented its designs for Hyperloop transportation. The company, SpaceX, released the concept in 2013 that involves a passenger capsule, which might travel at nearly the speed of sound in a vacuum tube.

Purdue team members participated in a hyperloop class taught by faculty members, including Alina Alexeenko, associate professor in the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics. She says the project was a unique learning experience.

“This has taken the team to a different level beyond just engineering,” Alexeenko says.

Students in the College of Engineering’s schools of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering and Industrial Engineering, as well the departments of Computer Science and Physics and Astronomy in the College of Science all contributed to the project.

More than 100 student engineering teams representing 27 states and 20 countries participated in the competition. Teams were judged on categories ranging from design detail and innovation to feasibility for test tract competition.