By KEVIN CHIRI
Slidell news bureau
SLIDELL – The idea of going to work in a car that levitates into air and fires away at astronomical speeds might only seem real when watching the old Jetsons cartoon.
But don’t tell several engineering students from St. Tammany Parish that it’s only going to happen on television.
Connor Joslin, John Babin and Ross Armond are three St. Tammany college students who are about to put their preliminary version of the Jetsons car on display in the Hyperloop Pod Competition in Hawthorne, Cal.
Their design was selected as one of only 30 that was eligible to build the actual vehicle and utilize the Hypertube test track built by billionaire Elon Musk and his SpaceX company.
The reason for the Hyperloop Pod Competition was announced nearly two years ago by SpaceX since Musk is trying to help develop the next version of travel in the United States, utilizing a vacuum tube in the middle of most interstates that will carry pods on cushions of air at speeds that could one day go over 500 miles per hour.
Joslin is heading a St. Tammany team that is mainly made up of college engineering students who submitted a design that was selected by SpaceX as one of the finalists in the competition. There were initially more than 1,000 interested engineering teams from around the world with over 700 submitting applications. From that, 200 submitted designs to SpaceX.
Judging in January, 2016 resulted in the St. Tammany/LSU team being selected to move forward and actually build the pod, then compete at a one-mile track in Hawthorne, Cal. where SpaceX and Musk will select the winners.
Joslin, a 2013 Mandeville High grad, is currently a senior mechanical engineering student at LSU. He said the competition is aiming at the next transportation system in the United States that will initially carry cargo, and one day will carry people.
“The technology already works in other areas of the world,” he said. “SpaceX is trying to move it along in the United States.”
The pod that has been built is approximately 12 feet long, 40-inches tall and 40-inches wide, and according to Joslin, “looks like a potato when we put the carbon fiber shell on it.” However, the pod must not only levitate a quarter-inch off the ground before taking off, but then runs above the tube tracks using 10, 100-amp lithium ion batteries to go forward. He said the local pod can go “up to 250 miles per hour although we will probably only get to 150 in the test because the track is only a mile long.”
Joslin, 22, initially began working on a team that included Josh Manriques from Slidell, who is now working on his own hyperloop company. The 15-man team spent a tremendous amount of time building the carbon fiber shell since they had to cut out the shape on small squares, then use a gel coating that had to be sanded to the exact aerodynamic shape.
“We probably spent over 800 man hours of work on that alone,” Joslin said.
Joslin said he was always fascinated with space travel when he was younger and was immediately interested in the competition when he heard about it in January of 2015.
“I thought it was so cool and challenging to come up with a design for this kind of transportation,” he said. “It’s very complex. This will be much faster than trucks or trains, and it will start off by moving cargo, which will greatly reduce the number of 18-wheelers on the highways.”
When Joslin and his team of 15 students was informed they were among the 30 teams picked as finalists, and therefore could build the pod and have a test run in California it meant raising the money to do so—close to $100,000.
“We began talking to companies and had great support from the beginning since there is a lot interest in this kind of travel,” he said.
The team has raised a little over $80,000 so far and are under budget. Louisiana Transportation and Research gave them $32,000 for the eight levitation hover engines, LSU gave them $15,000, then private donors chipped in $10,000 each. Some of their money came in the form of supplies or labor with Lewco Specialty Products donating $10,000, Hebert Steel providing $5,000 worth of goods and Newton Boat Services donating $1,000. The team has also been assisted by Global-E and Carl Guichard, who has been a mentor assisting with wiring and manufacturing.
“The project really sold itself since it’s so interesting and futuristic,” Joslin said. “I’ve been very impressed with how much the community has supported us.”
The current pods could go from Baton Rouge to New Orleans in 10 minutes, while a trip from New Orleans to Houston could take only 30 minutes when the technology is fully refined.
“I am excited for the potential of this,” Joslin added. “I think this can be ready and operational in five years. There is still a lot to understand about it like heat generation in a vacuum tube, the aerodynamics in the tube, levitation—but it already works in Japan, China and Germany and it will be coming here soon.”
Along with Joslin and Manriquez on the team, other engineering students on the team are Babin and Armond from Slidell, Kris Meche and Davis Lambert from Lafayette, Girguis Sedky from Egypt, Trey Cozic from New Orleans, and Grant Dietrich and Peyton Cabaniss from Baton Rouge. All are college students at LSU.
“We have hit so many brick walls doing this, like finding out after we started the design that the pod had to levitate first, then take off. There are so many moving parts to have it ready, but now we are close,” Joslin said.
Magnetism plays a huge part in the technology and Joslin said they had one funny incident when one of the very heavy hover engines—costing $4,000 each–got stuck on a metal desk.
“We barely were able to get it off,” he said with a laugh.
The team is set to travel to California where they will have a week to use the test track to try out their pod. The final competition is set for January 27.