25 x 25
By Improper Staff Aug. 5, 2016
Max Opgenoord
Max Opgenoord first heard about Hyperloop the same day that Elon Musk unveiled a white paper on the concept in 2013. The idea is that a pod would travel through a tube, delivering people or goods from point A to point B at speeds of up to 760 mph. When Musk, the SpaceX CEO and Tesla co-founder, announced a competition in 2015 for teams to create a pod for a 1-mile tube track, Opgenoord knew he had to get involved. He joined MIT’s Hyperloop team as part of his work toward a master’s degree; the team won the pod design competition in January and is slated to take part in a test-track run within the next year. “Planes and trains, while exciting themselves, are limited to the infrastructure—for planes, think of runway lengths and airport availability,” Opgenoord says. “With the Hyperloop, nothing is built yet. This means that we can design and optimize the system as a whole—instead of only the pod—using the newest design methodologies and technologies.” Now working on his doctorate at MIT, Opgenoord, 23, won’t be satisfied with simply chasing the Hyperloop concept: “I want to work on high-profile, high-tech engineering projects, which would also allow me to work on something else every few years.”
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