Nov 30, 2016 09:53 AM EST By Jane Reed, UniversityHerald Reporter

Elon Musk's SpaceX Hyperloop challenge has amassed teams from all over the globe to compete in the next generation of mass public transportation.

When Elon Musk detailed his vision of having a railway transportation that would take passengers from point A to point B in less than the amount it usually takes, many answered. University teams and college researches are now working on the designs to compete in the January 2017 Hyperloop challenge.

Many of these teams are focusing on magnetic levitation and an effective acceleration or brake system. But not Waterloop. The engineering students at the University of Waterloo is not using magnetic levitation, cites Tree Hugger. This is the only Canadian entry in the SpaceX Hyperloop competition in California that will be competing against 30 teams.

Instead of using magnetic levitation, this team is using air levitation. Much similar to that of an air hockey table game. They are described to be the world's first functional pneumatic Hyperloop levitation system that uses low pressure.

Captain Yazan Obeidi, the team lead of the University of Waterloo Hyperloop team, says that this will change people's lives.

The University of Waterloo is particularly proud of its engineers and their design. In a video below, their levitation system actually works with a breaking system that uses 84 neodymium magnets that are arranged in a Halbach array.

The braking system is designed to double the magnetic strength on one side and it then cancels out on the other side. When it comes to the braking system, the design exploits the drag.
Elon Musk's Hyperloop challenge is pushing engineers and researchers to solve a real life problem on transportation and traffic. His vision to create a future that thrives on a cost-effective, environment friendly and technologically advanced transportation hopes to be materialized by 2020 at least.

With the University of Waterloo's Hyperloop design, they hope to cut travel time from Ontario to Montreal to just thirty minutes (or less?).

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