Our Crowdfunding Groups
-The Berkeley Hyperloop Team
We are a team of driven Berkeley students selected by SpaceX to compete in the Hyperloop Pod Competition this January. We hope to revolutionize transportation, develop cutting-edge technologies, and inspire Berkeley students to take on impossible-seeming challenges. Please join us in our efforts to raise $10,000, which will be used to build our fully-functional Hyperloop Pod!
In the summer of 2015, in a modest underground library, five Berkeley students passionate about technology decided to compete the SpaceX Hyperloop Competition. Six months later, at the end of Texas A&M;’s Design Weekend, they were one of the only twenty-two teams on their way to revolutionizing the face of global transportation.
What started as a humble initiative gradually grew into a robust team of engineers, designers, and logisticians all driven by a single radical idea. Berkeley Hyperloop’s approach to designing the Hyperloop pod is a unique one – while Hyperloop is inherently an eco-conscious, affordable and unprecedented challenge to conventional transport, bLoop believes that safety comes above all with an idea as sweeping as Hyperloop. Hence, in January 2017, passenger safety will be central to bLoop’s model of the Hyperloop pod, which will be tested at SpaceX’s mile-long test track in Hawthorne, CA. We will be competing against top engineering teams from universities such as MIT and Carnegie Mellon as well as independent teams to collaboratively create an indelible impact on the future of transportation systems.
Funding is essential to taking our renders off the drawing board and making them a reality. We aim to have our pod machined and assembled a month in advance of SpaceX's test track, so as to fully prepare ourselves for the competition. bLoop's high-profile project is not only transformational for the transportation industry, but also an opportunity to further showcase the spirit of entrepreneurship and scientific creativity here at Berkeley. Our project will draw the attention of media and high-profile industry giants, and we want UC Berkeley to be at the forefront of an engineering competition as unprecedented and unique as this.
Apart from external pride, bLoop is also about perpetuating the culture of problem-solving and innovation that has been part of Berkeley's fundamental values since its inception. Our engineers and designers are directly applying the skills they learn in their classes to real-life problems while working on the pod, while our logisticians and marketeers work their way around daily problems that arise in large corporations and technology firms. Our mission is to simultaneously establish Berkeley as the premier institution for innovation, creativity, and engineering efficiency, and sustain the distinct culture of scholarship at Berkeley.
Berkeley Hyperloop is sponsored by the Berkeley College of Engineering. (Letter of Support: https://goo.gl/AQQTN2) We have faculty sponsorship from Professor Tony Keaveny, David Rich, and Dennis Lieu. We also have public corporate sponsorships from Autodesk, Samsung, Northrop Grumman, Modus Advanced, NI, and Ansys.
Using the software of our generous sponsor Autodesk, we've designed our pod structure from the ground up in Autodesk Fusion 360. In the same interface, we've analyzed stresses via FEA and been able to ensure that our pod is safe and has backup systems in the event of any failures. The support of Autodesk and our other industry partners have given us the tools to develop our ideas, and now it's up to all of us to get it built and launched!
For more information about our pod, you can find our renders, blog updates, and technical information here:
http://www.berkeley-hyperloop.com/
Explore the SpaceX Hyperloop Competition here: http://www.spacex.com/hyperloop
Backers will be receive an exclusive Berkeley Hyperloop bumper sticker with the message, "My other car is a Hyperloop!"
Backers will receive an etched, laser-cut keychain, featuring our team's Hyperloop pod design.
Backers will be receive an exclusive Berkeley Hyperloop bumper sticker. They will also receive a blueprint-style poster of the bLoop pod design.
Backers will receive all previous rewards, numbering (2) Bumper Stickers, (4) Keychains, and (1) bLoop Blueprint Poster.
Backers will receive a bumper sticker, keychain, and blueprint poster. Backers will further receive a 3D-printed scale model of the Hyperloop pod displaying the bLoop logo.
Backers will receive all previous rewards; in addition, backers will receive an invitation to tour UC Berkeley's Richmond Field Station, where the bLoop team designs, builds, and welds its Hyperloop pod.
Backers will receive all previous rewards; in addition, backers may put their name or company logo on the competition Hyperloop pod, as well as (for logos) the bLoop website and branding materials.
