The SpaceX and Tesla CEO came up with the concept of Hyperloop and others have been encouraged to take the idea and develop them further. Caroline Crouchley believes the concept is “really expensive” and looked at ways to lowers it the carbon footprint. The 14-year-old from Long Island, New York came up with a new take on the self-propelled transportation pods travelling at speeds of up to 700mph.
Caroline, who was also concerned about safety issues, told CNBC: “My dad and brother take the train to Manhattan every day, so its a big part of my life.
“Elon Musk’s hyperloop is really expensive.
“So I wanted to see if there was a different design that we could do that still used renewable energy.”
Her ’simpler’ design “can be more easily constructed, can utilise the existing footprint of rail right of ways, and is cheaper to build”.
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It will work by using Mr Musk’s pneumatic tubes but use the pods to propel existing trains instead of having passengers use the tubes.
She has called for the tubes to be built next to train tracks.
The idea won her won her second place in the 2019 3M Young Scientist Challenge.
She said: “In my first prototype, I made the pneumatic tube and shuttle on the side of the train with a connector arm that connects the shuttle and the train.
It comes as the UK ould have its own hyperloop transport network within just 20 years, dramatically cutting journey times with speeds in excess of 700mph.
Daniel Carbonell set out his ideas during a talk at New Scientist Live today entitled Hyperloop: the future of transportation.
As technical director of HYP-ED, a student team based at the University of Edinburgh, Mr Carbonell and his team are dedicated to making the Hyperloop concept a reality, and together they scooped the Hyperloop One Global Challenge, having proposed a route connecting the capitals of Scotland and England, an idea backed by Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson.
While such a scheme is still a long way from becoming a reality, HYP-ED continues to work on its proposal, while explore solutions which could be applied in other countries.