The Edmund D. Bossone Research Enterprise Center was abuzz as students from Drexel American Society of Mechanical Engineers presented the work that they had been doing for the international Space-X Hyperloop Competition at the Drexel Hyperloop Expo Feb. 11. Many Drexel alumni, local professionals and politicians showed up to see the Expo team present and learn more about the works of the University’s team.
Peter Taddeo and Oliver Tillman gave a presentation of the Drexel Hyperloop team’s design and the associated budget needed to make the design a reality. The students forecasted that around $100,000 in funding will be needed to manufacture the final design. “I was here tonight and I saw the future,” Ken Krawchuk, the Libertarian Party Candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania in 2002 and 2014, said. “I saw so much excitement for what this country is going to be. You could see it in the students’ eyes.”
Heiner Moehren, a Project Manager for the Philadelphia based Urban Engineers INC. However, was among the few who were not on board with the Drexel Hyperloop team’s current design. “When you’re building a structure like this, you need to think about ‘What else can I integrate with it?’”
Moehren advocated that the Drexel Hyperloop team should break from the status quo and find useful utilities that they could integrate with their design of the Hyperloop Infrastructure. If the Drexel Hyperloop team incorporated cashflow generating utilities into the infrastructure of the Hyperloop, more venture capitalists would be eager to invest because the infrastructure would eventually pay for itself.
“Already you are respecting the earth by reducing friction and energy consumption. This is one of the greenest projects that one can think about,” Moehren said.
More information about the Drexel Hyperloop team can be found http://satellite.mem.drexel.edu/hyperloop/.