We are rLoop, reddit's open source, crowd sourced, Hyperloop design team, and we're one of 30 teams remaining in Elon Musk's Hyperloop competition. AuA!

If you were not studying engineering what would you study?

i actually went to a classical music school for 10 years, followed by visual arts, followed by film, followed by motorcycle mechanics and, finally, mechanical engineering.

if i were to go back to school again, it would probably be for astrophysics.

What instrument mate

focus was on harmony and composition, but had to play piano. and sing.

California has recently moved towards funding for high-speed rail. What impact will that have on the prospective hyperloop?

the hyperloop concept actually arose out of dissatisfaction of the planned HSR in CA. to pull a quote from the Alpha Paper:

How could it be that the home of Silicon Valley and JPL – doing incredible things like indexing all the world’s knowledge and putting rovers on Mars – would build a bullet train that is both one of the most expensive per mile and one of the slowest in the world?

An airplane is on a conveyor belt which moves in the opposite direction. Can the plane take off?

What kind of belt is on the conveyor?

How come I never got my shirt for donating?

donating to the campaign? all perks have an (approximate) ship date of August, 2016. however, many of the perk levels (shirts, sweaters, posters) will be shipped much sooner than then...

What colors will the tubes/pods be? Will a shark design be a real option?

while the tube is outside of our control, the pod is - but as /u/starcraftre pointed out, paint is just weight. full scale, i'd love them to be white.

What do you think the max speed of your pod design will be, especially re: the air pistoning problem?

during the competition, 300mph. as /u/starcraftre said we'll be avoiding the pistoning altogether at our cross sectional area and pressure.

If you win what kind of cake will you have at the after party?

i'm a lemon meringue kind of guy.

No way! We're doing red velvet.

I vote for Red Velvet as well! or some kind of double chocolate fudge thingy.

we can have all the cakes.

Having a worldwide, distributed team doing design is one thing, how are you planning on doing the actual manufacture and assembly? Is everyone going to take a month off work and go live in a warehouse together?

luckily (planned), our head of engineering and our head of manufacturing are in CA. we also have a team who will be working on it full time, and others who will be working on it part time. we're using an approach we call micro manufacturing, with members who have access to specialized equipment or materials manufacturing as much as they can feasibly remotely. on site, we'll have our full timers wearing go pro cameras and receiving guidance from the remote team. we're excited!

How large are your pods you're designing? In the contexts of buses and trains, where they have to accelerate and decelerate so often to let people on and off, more energy is wasted. Would a Hyperloop system be more efficient with taxi sized pods to bring passengers directly to their destination?

our pod will accommodate 1 dummy passenger and is approximately half scale. the system would be from point A to point B, and not able to accommodate stops in between (at least in its current design). the levitation system we are using would accommodate such a system, and is capable of operating outside of the tube as well - that is unique to our design.

how large are the magnets needed to get the pod hovering?

we're using mag lev tech from Arx Pax - the hover engines are 10.5" in diameter and we'll require 8 of them to levitate our pod mass between 6 and 10 mm.

EDIT: updated specs on hover engines have them at approx. 8.5"

Are there any plans to expand into things other than Hyperloop?

VTOL, astro mining, beamed propulsion... (This should summon /u/zarok )

the open source, crowd sourced concept has been incredibly successful for us, and we look forward to applying it to other 'moon shot' projects.

If you had to explain Hyperloop to a five year old, how would you do it?

it's a car driving through a tube, but we remove the wheels and make the car levitate, then fill the tube with space!

What effect would natural phenomena like Earthquakes have on the Hyperloop?

earthquakes would cause some issues, but systems can be implemented to mitigate - both for the tube and for the pod. actually, fun fact, Arx Pax initially developed the MFA tech as a means to levitate buildings/homes during an earthquake!

Arxpax look pretty cool. Have you tested or simulated it?

yes, we're working on a 1/12th scale pod to test our control system. our engineering lead, /u/ZAROK , has tested the Hendo Hoverboard at Arx Pax HQ as well.

Do you know when the competition track is going to be built and when the competition will actually take place?

the best info we have right now is 'end of august, early september'. the specifications of the track have still not been finalized, and construction has not yet started.

I'm running out of serious questions right now so, What Hogwarts house would you be in?

never read harry potter, but my wife says griffendor or ravenclaw. whatever that means.

Have you guys considered using the rLoop as a new form for sending things into space?

here you go!

Should be a paint drawing incoming...

favorite things to snack on while you work?

Soylent. And beer.

Would it be possible to use a Hyperloop-esque system to launch objects into orbit?

absolutely

Did you guys do a dance when we hit 15,000 on the stream?

i was dancing. and have started mentally preparing for the shark suit.

Have you guys considered using eddy currents for braking?

our primary braking is ec. /u/whiplash01 has done extensive simulation on that if you're interested!