rLoop

RLOOP INCORPORATED rLoop is a competitor in the SpaceX's Hyperloop Pod Competition in Hawthorne, CA. Not only are they competing in the second years competition, but they were also awarded the SpaceX Innovation Award in the previous year's competition. While the competition consists mainly of university teams, rLoop was formed off the the popular website "Reddit" and is the only non-student team. This team of internet visionaries designed and built a pod in a field of 1800 entrants.

I have had the absolute pleasure working with rLoop and its engineers for over the past year and a half. During that time I moved from casual online contributor to being the manufacturing lead. I have to say this has been the greatest learning experience of my life so far. I want to thank every single person I worked with as it would not have been possible without you.

Further down on this page you can see what I focused on in this project. If you want to know more about the competition please read Frank Zhao's post.

Responsibilities:

Manufacturing Lead

Lead onsite procurement, machining, assembly, and testing of rLoop’s Hyperloop pod

Manufacturing of the pressure vessel, sub-structure, and testing equipment

Delegated or personally produced reliable parts within a tight budget and narrow timeline

Mechanical/Aero Team Member

Drawing, reviewing, and releasing manufacturing drawings from both on site and remotely

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TE The Making of the Hyperloop Video Series

MANUFACTURING OF THE PRESSURE VESSEL rLoop was one of the few teams that included a pressure vessel with their pod. It is designed to house both a passenger and many vital control aspects. Since this was the first tangible item that came out of the online think tank, it was a huge boost in confidence for all those working remotely. Finally something tangible from all those hours they put in online.

The project included the following objectives and tasks:

Lasercut and TIG weld the .040 thick aluminum ribs, there was a special jig we needed to build so the weld would be even on such thin aluminum

Riveting the skin against the stringers evenly, in total we went through around 7 pounds of solid rivets

Installing the controls tray and its track

Find a way to mount the bulkheads after a design hiccup

Multiple pressure tests and epoxy sealing

With all the time, stress, and elbow grease I put into the pressure vessel, it was great seeing it on competition day, even if it was covered up by the aeroshell.

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MANUFACTURING THE SUB-STRUCTURE The sub-structure required a lot of iterative design. Many of the components designed were not easy to manufacture and required lengthy discussions over the internet. Mounted to the sub-structure were our brakes, hover engines, wheels, and many sensors.

The project included the following objectives and tasks:

Cut all square tubing, jig, and TIG weld them (alignment was key)

Roll and weld on the curved cradles

Mount the subsystems to the sub-structure and fine tune for alignment

Create a stand for easy access to the sub-systems below

I made a couple of mistakes during early steps, but they were remedied by buying the cheap tubing and starting over. As for the welding, an employee of Google X volunteered his time and expertise. He was able to get all four quadrants done in just a day.

20160814_162231.jpg RPOD WIRING HARNESS AND CONTROLS MOUNTING For the week leading up to the competition, I was only sleeping about 4 hours every night. This was because the team and I needed to ensure all the connections going through the port holes were correctly placed and met up with the controls tray. This was difficult as we had to work around the connected battery packs. I got shocked quite a few times myself. By the time we were done, were were able to get telemetry data, power on the ARX PAX hover engines, and actuate the braking system.

Below you can see the rLoop's custom PCBs and battery packs. I firmly believe the design of the controls system is what allowed us to win the Innovation Award as it was designed for scalability.

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