WEBVTT

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oh man this is a heavy door okay so what if i told you that there

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was a mode of transportation that not only promised to leave planes trains and

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automobiles all in the dust but to do so

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with extraordinary efficiency and that te connectivity brought us down to los

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angeles to take a close look at a sponsored prototype built by a ragtag

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team of reddit engineers

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rangineers calling themselves our loop

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from all over the world it weighs 400

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kilograms contains hundreds of sensors

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and it can freaking hover

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so our loop started out in much the same way that any online

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community does as a group of passionate people on reddit that saw that spacex

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was hosting a hyperloop competition and figured that they could do it better

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but unlike most online communities with

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some help from spacex and sponsors like tecon activity who provided engineering

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resources sensors wiring and manufacturing space they managed to

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overcome the geographical and communication barriers that inevitably

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arise when you've got a team of over a thousand people scattered across dozens

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of countries and they actually did

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something and considering that all of these folks

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are volunteers one of which even quit his job and moved

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to the u.s from india for a year

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what they've done is nothing short of amazing so let's take a closer look at

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the pod now if you're not already familiar with the hyperloop concept the

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first thing you'll probably notice is that there's no obvious external

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propulsion mechanism like a jet engine or a propeller

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that's because hyperloop pods aren't expected to be able to propel themselves

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see this big plate on the back of the pod it's called a pusher plate

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now in the future pods could be launched down the tube at near hypersonic speeds

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then boosted by linear induction motors essentially making the tube a big rail

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gun or they could use an on-board system but for the purposes of the competition

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that we're attending today this pusher plate is used to give the pod a colossal

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kick in the ass with a stripped-down tesla and send it whipping down the

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track but anyone who's ever tried to mimic their

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dog sticking their head out of a car window can probably guess that uh the

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fiberglass nose cone over there isn't going to solve the pods air resistance

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challenges at over a thousand kilometers

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per hour where air feels less like a

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gentle breeze and more like the boston molasses tsunami of 1919

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which is a real thing by the way look it up so the proposed solution for now is

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to run these pods inside a closed tube

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that's being held at a near vacuum now the clever among you have probably

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also noticed that these wheels are totally unsuitable for speed of

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sound travel that's because they are only for manual maneuvering of the pod

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and emergencies these babies right here are what

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actually keep the pods butt from getting as raw as mine did on a dried up water

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slide that one time there are eight of

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what the team affectionately refers to as hover engines

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each of them is made up of three king strong magnets

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it's a scientific term right there arranged in what's called a hall back

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array to augment the strength of the magnetic field of the individual magnets

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so when they start spinning over an electrically conductive surface they

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actually create enough lift to keep this

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400 kilogram pod levitating above the

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track then there are also passive magnets on

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the bottom for additional lift once the pod gets up to full speed and while

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we're on the topic of magnets they power the brakes too the pod uses two 28-inch

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hallback arrays that are configured such

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that they create drag as they approach a

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conductive surface without making contact so that means no biannual brake

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pad replacements sorry nappa and this is really cool too

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while any pod that would hope to be used

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in a working hyperloop would need to levitate to achieve the required

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efficiency our loop's design is unique in that its

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active hover engines allow it to levitate over any conductive surface

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not just inside of a specialized tube

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and furthermore their gimbal mounting system lets them be used for thrust in

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addition to just lift however this crazy levitation is super power

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hungry so much so that the team had to

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design and custom manufacture two of

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these 2 000 amp lithium polymer battery packs

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these things are so powerful that a wrench accidentally dropped inside would

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essentially weld itself to the copper bus bars then they crammed both of them

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into the pod for redundancy which is where te connectivity comes in through

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the transmission of power and data signals now let's talk cooling the heat

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generated by the various mechanical and electrical systems in the pod many of

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which you can actually see when we pop the hood is monitored by over 600

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thermal sensors but monitoring is not enough you got to

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get rid of it and because there will be virtually no air in the tube the

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solution is not as simple as just slapping a radiator to the front of the

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pod our loops answer this liquid carbon dioxide cooling

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system so at the end of each of these little brass fittings is a super small

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hole only 13 and a half thousandths of an inch that when activated dispenses

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four grams of liquid co2 per second

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when that goes from the high pressure holding tank to the low pressure near

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vacuum environment the liquid co2 vaporizes removing heaps of heat in the

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process how much exactly well let's just say

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that if you opened it up over a glowing hot toaster you'd be left with a block

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of dry ice to say that there are still a lot of

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engineering manufacturing security cost

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and logistical problems for hyperloop believers to solve

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would be an understatement but the work being done here and the

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reason for sponsors like te connectivity to get involved

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is not necessarily about building a working hyperloop and pod

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tomorrow it's about developing technologies that

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may end up being deployed in completely different ways that we haven't even

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imagined yet and if we succeed in building a system

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that lets commuters travel from san francisco to la in as little as 35

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minutes with no strip search from your friendly local tsa officer

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well then that's just icing so thanks for watching guys if you

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disliked this video you can hit that button but if you liked it hit the like

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button get subscribed maybe consider checking out te.com

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our loop where you can watch a five-part webisode documentary about the r-loop

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team and learn about their awesome virtual collaboration model