Nov 15, 2016 01:48 AM EST By Jane Reed, UniversityHerald Reporter

In January 2017, the world is going to witness student teams from across the globe to compete in the first ever race to the "tube" finish line.

Last September 30, the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod competition accepted entries for the coming January race. The race will focus on building the pod. Last year, the contest was all about designing the pod.

Will their winning designs become a reality? That is the question many have asked. Ever since SpaceX co-founder Elon Musk challenged the world to create a transportation system that would enable subjects to travel in a faster time frame, research teams and universities went all in.

Last year, there were 125 teams that joined the competition. From these teams were over a thousand college and university students. And only one team was able to come out on top from the Texas A&M based competition. Massachusetts Institute of Technology took the first place when it comes to the winning design. Their prototype involved levitation and brake control. The MIT team did not focus on the "look" of the pod. Instead, they focused on the design's ability to operate. Their pod weighed 550 lbs and is over eight feet in length. Will MIT be able to snag the gold medal again this January 2017?

According to Inverse, Musk envisions a pod that could travel at more than 700 mph. Hyperloop One will be used as the transportation tube and Musk's vision will ultimately become a reality with the winning pod next year. The top 10 winning designs were set to test their pods at Tesla's Hawthorne site this year. Many think that MIT is going to be a strong contender.

Elon Musk has been saying that a tube transportation system will become the answer to the world's problem in transportation. Even United States Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx agrees that the Hyperloop can become a research from his department.

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