Elon Musk 's ambitious Hyperloop idea doesn't seem to be going as well as he had hoped. This new transportation proposal is supposed to be much faster than existing public transportation. But now the Hyperloop has a competitor, designed by a 13-year-old girl!
Caroline Crouchley from Garden City, New York, has designed an economically viable and environmentally friendly alternative to the Hyperloop. She has proposed building pneumatic tubes alongside existing rail lines. Her idea is based on moving magnetic reciprocating machines through pneumatic tubes that are connected via a magnetic arm to the trains.
The system he proposes eliminates the need to build an entire infrastructure, such as that required by Hyperloop, while also minimizing the risk to passenger safety
Speaking to CNN Travel, Crouchley said: "I've singled out transportation as something I wanted to work on because if we can make trains more efficient, then we can reduce the amount of cars, trucks and buses on the road."
Crouchley was inspired by her father and brother's daily commutes on the New York City subway, and then did extensive research on Hyperloop and Maglev.
Maglev is an acronym that stands for magnetic levitation. It is a train transportation system that deploys two sets of magnets. One set repels the rails and propels the train, while the other set uses the lack of friction to propel the train forward.
“My design can be powered by 100% renewable energy, so it eliminates the need for a diesel engine or electric motor, which makes the train lighter so it can move faster,” says Crouchley.
The alternative Hyperloop concept has won second place in the annual 3M Young Scientist Challenge. The next step is to build a larger model and evaluate its operating mechanism on a large scale.
