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CMU Students Working On Futuristic Technology That Could Change Travel

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Some Carnegie Mellon University students are working on a serious plan to change the way we all travel.

It's something called Hyperloop.

The idea is that you'd travel in capsules inside tubes at 700 miles an hour.

Making it from Pittsburgh to New York City would be possible in just 30 minutes. Travel to Washington, D.C. would be about 20 minutes.

Members of the CMU Hyperloop team have developed a prototype capsule that floats on a table much the way a puck on an air hockey table does.

The prototype is way too small for people to fit inside, but they're raising money to build a half-sized pod that they'll test as part of a competition this summer in California.

"It'll basically change how you live and what life is like," said Sid Sahoo of CMU's Hyperloop Team. "You could be in New York for a lunch in about 30 minutes as opposed to making it a full-day trip."

The idea started with Elon Musk, CEO of the Tesla car company.

Anshuman Kumar of the CMU team explains: "He was in traffic jam on the way, I believe from Los Angeles to San Francisco, and he just imagined how would it be if you could travel between these two cities within half an hour."

What's followed is a competition; schools across the world competing to make it a reality, and one of the remaining teams is at CMU's Integrated Innovation Institute. There are about 75 members on the CMU team.

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Test runs have gone really well, and Cameron Burgess from the team explained what it would be like to ride in it: "So there's doors and you kind of come in and the doors seal down and you're sort of in your seat for the rest of the ride."

"Twenty. Twenty-five minutes. Thirty minutes, and we're sort of assuming you've gone to the bathroom before you get in because you're not going to be getting up," Burgess said with a chuckle.

The students are now raising money to build the pod with which they'll compete on a track this summer.

"We're hoping to build it on-site at CMU at their facilities from start to finish, and when we're done with it, our plan is to ship it out to California," said Laine Mallet of the CMU Hyperloop Team.

They have to raise about $125,000 to build that pod, and need a big chunk of it by the next month so they can move forward.

If you'd like to donate, check out: www.cmuhyperloop.com

With University grants, crowdfunding and some sponsors that have emerged with the success of their early testing, they've gotten about $40,000, so far.

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