UC Irvine Giving Day

UC Irvine HyperXite is a multidisciplinary team of undergraduate students with a shared goal to disrupt the transportation industry. Founded in 2015 by a group of undergraduate students, our team’s mission is to bring a new kind of sustainable high-speed bullet train to life.

Each year, the design of our internationally top-ranked hyperloop pod evolves to include newer and more innovative technologies; what started as a small air-based levitation system project has become a team of 40 dedicated students researching and developing our own thermal cooling mechanisms, linear induction motors and magnetically levitating systems, to name a few.

From designing complex PCBs to creating robust carbon fiber structures to assembling our pod’s chassis, HyperXite gives UC Irvine students have a unique opportunity to develop their technical and interpersonal skills through a project not found anywhere else on campus. Our members gain hands-on experience and apply their classroom knowledge to real-world problems through the comprehensive design, testing and construction of our pod. Over 11 years, we have a proven history of excelling in competitions against other collegiate teams, graduate students and industry professionals. This includes international competitions such as European Hyperloop Week, the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition, where we placed in the Top 6 and Hyperloop Global, where we won Best Research, Best Presentation and Best Guidance System. These achievements, along with being a celebrated project at UC Irvine – winning the Dean's Choice Award amongst 200+ other senior design projects multiple times in recent years – showcase our team's capabilities and dedication.

Progress Report

Since our fall 2025 ZotFunder campaign closed, the UC Irvine HyperXite team has been hard at work transitioning from simulations and design to fabrication and testing. While we have made significant strides in early-stage fabrication, we have a critical need to raise $10,000 to purchase remaining pod components such as copper wire for our Linear Induction Motor (LIM) and pneumatic cylinders for our brakes. Your continued support is vital as we prepare to showcase our latest technical advancements at our annual Demonstration Day.

Your Support So Far

With the $4,050 we raised in our fall 2025 ZotFunder campaign, our team has purchased high-priority components for initial verification of our project:

• $650: Electromagnets for our magnetic levitation proof of concept
• $600: Low-voltage batteries, PCBs, and tools for our power system
• $140: PLA to print our scaled-down fairing model for wind tunnel testing
• $100: Control boards and sensors for our embedded systems

We will use the remaining $2,560 already raised for items such as additional electromagnets and track infrastructure to develop our scalable magnetic levitation prototype.

We are proud to have built this community with you and hope you will consider supporting us again this Giving Day. Your gifts have an everlasting impact on our journey and our team. Thank you!