• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Departments
    • Aerospace Engineering
    • Bioengineering
    • Civil and Environmental Engineering
    • Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
    • Engineering Science
    • Industrial Engineering and Operations Research
    • Materials Science and Engineering
    • Mechanical Engineering
    • Nuclear Engineering
  • News
    • Berkeley Engineer magazine
    • Social media
    • News videos
    • News digest (email)
    • Press kit
  • Events
    • Commencement
    • Homecoming
    • Cal Day
    • View from the Top
    • Kuh Lecture Series
    • Minner Lecture
  • College directory
  • For staff & faculty
Berkeley Engineering

Educating leaders. Creating knowledge. Serving society.

  • About
    • Facts & figures
    • Rankings
    • Voices of Berkeley Engineering
    • Equity & inclusion
    • Leadership team
    • Milestones
    • Facilities
    • Maps
  • Admissions
    • Undergraduate admissions
    • Graduate admissions
    • Visit
    • Maps
    • Admissions events
    • K-12 outreach
  • Academics
    • Undergraduate programs
    • Majors & minors
    • Undergraduate Guide
    • Graduate programs
    • Graduate Guide
    • Innovation & entrepreneurship
    • Kresge Engineering Library
    • International programs
    • Executive education
  • Research & faculty
    • Centers & institutes
    • Undergrad research
    • Faculty
  • Students
    • Advising & counseling
    • Programs
    • Academic support
    • Student life
    • Wellness & inclusion
    • Undergraduate Guide
    • Degree requirements
    • Forms & petitions
    • Resources
  • Connect
    • Alumni
    • Industry
    • Give
    • Stay in touch
Home > News > Learning to levitate
Diagram of Berkeley Hyperloop prototype, showing air bearings, safety features, signals and controls.

Learning to levitate

May 1, 2016
This article appeared in Berkeley Engineer magazine, Spring 2016

Before shooting their futuristic vehicle down a test track at high speeds for a design competition this summer, 40 Berkeley students must first make their Hyperloop pod levitate.

The world’s Hyperloop fascination started back in 2012, when SpaceX founder Elon Musk let loose the futuristic vision of a mass transit system in which people board pressurized capsules to zing through reduced-pressure tubes on rails of air.

Last year, SpaceX hosted a competition for university students, and in January, the Berkeley team was invited to build a working prototype of their design. The team is working toward launching a pod on a test track in Hawthorne, California this August.

Berkeley Hyperloop (bLoop) team members have set up shop at the Richmond Field Station to build a pod that is not quite full size, but still substantial enough to carry a 100-pound test dummy. Third-year mechanical engineering student Neelanjan Lahiri says that their design puts safety first. “The higher you levitate, the more air you need, and you need to make sure that the braking is good,” he says.

Topics: Competitions, Devices & inventions, Students, Transportation
  • Contact
  • Give
  • Privacy
  • UC Berkeley
  • Accessibility
  • Nondiscrimination
  • instagram
  • twitter
  • linkedin
  • facebook
  • youtube
© 2022 UC Regents