UC Irvine’s HyperXite team beat out more than 100 others to finish fifth in the international Hyperloop Pod Design competition Jan. 29-30 at Texas A&M University.

The Hyperloop is a concept first proposed by Elon Musk and SpaceX to design and build extreme high-speed, energy-efficient transportation. More than 1,000 students from 20 countries competed in the event, vying for the chance to build and test their prototype on the world’s first Hyperloop test track this summer.

HyperXite was the highest-placing team from California. The 23 UCI undergraduate students from varying majors – ranging from engineering to business to computer science – had been working on their pod idea since last summer, when SpaceX first announced the contest. Based on its preliminary design, the team was invited to attend Design Weekend.