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German engineering students from the Technical University of Munich have won the SpaceX competition for a consecutive third time, developing the fastest pod once again.
The team's pod travelled at a speed of 290 mph or 467 kmph on Sunday. The speed attained in the competition was 50% more than previous speed achieved in the last edition of the competition.
Last year, in August 2017, the prototype made by the team ran at a speed of 324 kmph.
WARR Hyperloop, the German team, was competing with Delft University from the Netherlands and EPF Loop from Switzerland in the final round.
Other participants were left far behind the German team. For instance, team Delft Hyperloop hit a top speed of 88 mph during the run.
The competition is part of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s vision for a futuristic, high-speed transportation system. Each team had to develop a self-propelled pod to travel down the 1.2-kilometer (0.75-mile) tube.
Warr Hyperloop also won one of three innovation prizes, in recognition of their ambitious move to construct two pods: one for the speed competition, and another to demonstrate its levitation capabilities.
Despite the record speed, they were far behind their ambitions. The team had aimed to achieve 600 kmph in the competition.
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