Picture living in Corner Brook and working in St. John’s with only a 30-minute commute through a hyperloop.
A hyperloop is a high-speed transportation system that would move specially designed pods through a system of tubes.
It’s the future of travel that Kyle Genge sees becoming possible in, well, the not too distant future.
Genge just entered the fourth year of the mechanical engineering program at Memorial University in St. John’s. Originally from Port Saunders he’s been living in Pasadena for the last six years.
He was in Corner Brook on Friday to speak at a Greater Corner Brook Board of Trade Luncheon at the Glynmill Inn for Innovation Week.
Genge is a member of Paradigm Hyperloop, an organization of students from Memorial and Northeastern University in Boston that are working to bring the hyperloop concept to reality.
Before the luncheon Genge said he randomly went to one of the group’s presentations and it changed his life.
The group, which stays connected through online communication and travel, originally started out with six universities.
The hyperloop concept was proposed by American businessman, investor and engineer Elon Musk in 2013.
Musk sponsors the SpaceX Hyperloop design competition in California for students and others to build pods that could be used in hyperloop travel.
The 2015 competition was designed based and after doing that the Paradigm Hyperloop team built a pod which it took to the 2017 competition.
The team won first place in North America and second place internationally for its air levitated pod.
It was one of three teams in the world that got to test their un-manned pods in the tube. The pod was the second fastest with a top speed of 60 miles an hour.
The team is now in full design mode working on a new pod for the 2019 competition.
The new one will be faster and lighter as the team improves on a lot of its systems.
Genge said it’s not only students who are doing this as there are many companies around the world working on hyperloop travel right now.
During his presentation to the board he shared an overview of what a hyperloop is, what his team is trying to do with it and what it means for the province.
“Technology keeps getting better and better and more tech startups are coming out of Newfoundland, so, it’s a pretty fitting topic for innovation week.”