1 min read
A student team from Virginia Commonwealth University competed in an open competition to design transport pods for the SpaceX’s Hyperloop concept, with a big lift in the form of a partnership with Dominion Payroll.
Hyperloop at VCU, the student team in question, was one of only 20 teams selected (out of more than 600 entries from 40 countries) to advance to the final round of the competition to design and build the best transport pods for the Hyperloop, a high-speed transportation concept from Elon Musk’s Space X. Unlike a normal train or subway car, a Hyperloop pod must be designed to withstand the rigors of a near-vacuum environment while self-propelling to speeds exceeding 290 mph.
“We couldn’t be happier to have been asked to participate in this,” Dominion Payroll President David Fratkin said. “These students are the innovators and entrepreneurs of tomorrow, so naturally we felt that Dominion Payroll, which empowers the innovators and entrepreneurs of today, would be a great fit for the project.”
The competition, with Dominion Payroll’s CEO David Gallagher and SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk in attendance, took place at the SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California on July 22, 2018. It was a tough day of last-minute safety and tolerance checks, with VCU competing against teams that had attended two and three years in a row. Although Hyperloop at VCU didn’t emerge triumphant (that honor went to WARR Hyperloop from the Technical University of Munich), they wildly exceeded expectations for a first-year team.
Dominion Payroll is proud to empower young innovators creating the future of transportation! Congratulations, everybody!