Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

inbound

Totally tubular: Student teams compete in Hyperloop race

Team sponsored by crane and lifting specialist Gorbel earns honors as top North American finisher.

Totally tubular: Student teams compete in Hyperloop race

Quick, what's the fastest, safest, cheapest way to move freight between two cities about 500 miles apart?

According to Elon Musk, founder of the Tesla Inc. electric car maker and SpaceX rocket and aerospace firm, it's a six-foot-wide vacuum tube he calls the Hyperloop. Musk popularized the concept in a 2013 white paper that offered a detailed, 58-page description of the hypothetical system. Two years later, SpaceX announced it was building a one-mile demonstration tube at its Hawthorne, Calif., headquarters and would host a competition challenging university teams to design and build the best transport "pod."


This past August, nearly two dozen teams of college students from around the globe assembled in Hawthorne for the SpaceX "Hyperloop II" race, where they vied to see whose magnetic-levitation pod could fly through the tube the fastest. The race represented the third judging phase of the multipart Hyperloop Pod Competition (earlier rounds included a design competition and a preliminary on-track competition).

Among the contestants was a team sponsored by the Fishers, N.Y.-based material handling equipment provider Gorbel Inc. The Gorbel-backed team, known as "Paradigm Hyperloop," is made up of students from Boston's Northeastern University and Canada's Memorial University of Newfoundland. Gorbel provided the team with a two-ton gantry crane that allowed them to safely lift their experimental pod as they tinkered with its suspension, brakes, lateral control, and air bearings, the company said.

Paradigm was the only North American team to make the finals, earning second place overall with a 62 mph run that trailed only the 201-mph run achieved by a German team called WARR Hyperloop. But don't count Paradigm out just yet. The team says it is now preparing for next year's round, which is scheduled to take place in the summer of 2018.

The Latest

More Stories

AI sensors on manufacturing machine

AI firm Augury banks $75 million in fresh VC

The New York-based industrial artificial intelligence (AI) provider Augury has raised $75 million for its process optimization tools for manufacturers, in a deal that values the company at more than $1 billion, the firm said today.

According to Augury, its goal is deliver a new generation of AI solutions that provide the accuracy and reliability manufacturers need to make AI a trusted partner in every phase of the manufacturing process.

Keep ReadingShow less

Featured

AMR robots in a warehouse

Indian AMR firm Anscer expands to U.S. with new VC funding

The Indian warehouse robotics provider Anscer has landed new funding and is expanding into the U.S. with a new regional headquarters in Austin, Texas.

Bangalore-based Anscer had recently announced new financial backing from early-stage focused venture capital firm InfoEdge Ventures.

Keep ReadingShow less
Report: 65% of consumers made holiday returns this year

Report: 65% of consumers made holiday returns this year

Supply chains continue to deal with a growing volume of returns following the holiday peak season, and 2024 was no exception. Recent survey data from product information management technology company Akeneo showed that 65% of shoppers made holiday returns this year, with most reporting that their experience played a large role in their reason for doing so.

The survey—which included information from more than 1,000 U.S. consumers gathered in January—provides insight into the main reasons consumers return products, generational differences in return and online shopping behaviors, and the steadily growing influence that sustainability has on consumers.

Keep ReadingShow less

Automation delivers results for high-end designer

When you get the chance to automate your distribution center, take it.

That's exactly what leaders at interior design house Thibaut Design did when they relocated operations from two New Jersey distribution centers (DCs) into a single facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 2019. Moving to an "empty shell of a building," as Thibaut's Michael Fechter describes it, was the perfect time to switch from a manual picking system to an automated one—in this case, one that would be driven by voice-directed technology.

Keep ReadingShow less

In search of the right WMS

IT projects can be daunting, especially when the project involves upgrading a warehouse management system (WMS) to support an expansive network of warehousing and logistics facilities. Global third-party logistics service provider (3PL) CJ Logistics experienced this first-hand recently, embarking on a WMS selection process that would both upgrade performance and enhance security for its U.S. business network.

The company was operating on three different platforms across more than 35 warehouse facilities and wanted to pare that down to help standardize operations, optimize costs, and make it easier to scale the business, according to CIO Sean Moore.

Keep ReadingShow less