Elementary, Mr. Watson: Rein in Your Design Constraints
Target Condition: Are Autorouters Friend or Foe?
Fresh PCB Concepts: Assembly Challenges with Micro Components and Standard Solder Mask Practices
Altium Sponsors Seven Teams at 2018 SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition
July 2, 2018 | PRNewswireEstimated reading time: 3 minutes
Altium, a leading provider of electronics design systems for PCB design, today announced its sponsorship of seven teams at SpaceX’s upcoming 2018 Hyperloop Pod Competition, which will take place on Sunday, July 22, 2018 at SpaceX’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California. Now in its third installment, the competition aims to accelerate the development of functional prototypes and encourage up-and-coming university and innovator teams to design and build the best transport Pod for high speed ground transportation. A sponsor since the first competition in 2015, Altium is proud to provide tools to help enable the next generation of electronics engineers.
SpaceX held its first-ever Hyperloop Pod Competition in 2015 to give global teams the opportunity to design and build a Hyperloop Pod to bring to life Elon Musk’s vision of a high-speed ground transportation. Last year’s winner, WARR Hyperloop of Technical University of Munich (currently sponsored by Altium), reached a pod speed of 201 mph. This year’s competition will be judged solely on one criterion: maximum speed with successful deceleration (i.e., without crashing). Additionally, all Pods must be self-propelled. Since its inception, the competition has continued to inspire electrical engineering students around the world to push the boundaries of innovation.
“Sponsors to us are absolutely our lifeline,” said Johnny Kohlbeck, operations director at Badgerloop. “If we did not have the support that industry sponsors like Altium provide, we would not be here today. There are a number of PCB software tools out there yet Altium has one of the most advanced tools,” said Vaughn Kottler, electrical engineer at Badgerloop. “The fact that you can check your entire schematic against your layout is just awesome and helps ensure that you are able to bring your concept to life.”
Altium plays an important role in these competitions by providing teams with the professional software they need to design circuit boards that allow the Pods to function. This past year, Altium’s sponsored team, Badgerloop, used Altium Designer to design boards like the STM nucleo microcontroller board and shield that they could reuse as new iterations of pods were developed. To streamline the workflow, they developed a subversion network which allowed them to work closely and collaboratively on PCB designs during the summer when team members resided across two continents and three time zones.
Altium is sponsoring seven teams who are attending the 2018 Hyperloop Pod Competition. The teams hail across five countries in the U.S., The Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany and Scotland. The teams include Delft Hyperloop of Delft University of Technology; HyperXite of University of California, Irvine; Swissloop of ETH Zurich; WARR Hyperloop of Technical University of Munich; UW Hyperloop of University of Washington; Badgerloop of University of Wisconsin–Madison and HYPED of University of Edinburgh.
"At Altium, we believe the bold and innovative ideas from this competition may one day lead to the realization of the potential Hyperloop’s concept has to transform ground transportation,” said Ted Pawela, Chief Operating Officer at Altium. "We are excited to see the successes of these young and talented electrical engineering students and are proud to have helped them in our own small way."
About Altium
Altium LLC (ASX:ALU) is a multinational software corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, that focuses on electronics design systems for 3D PCB design and embedded system development. Altium products are found everywhere from world leading electronic design teams to the grassroots electronic design community.
With a unique range of technologies Altium helps organisations and design communities to innovate, collaborate and create connected products while remaining on-time and on-budget. Products provided are ACTIVEBOM, ActiveRoute, Altium Designer, Altium Vault, Altium NEXUSTM, Autotrax, Camtastic, Ciiva, CIIVA SMARTPARTS, CircuitMaker, CircuitStudio, Codemaker, Common Parts Library, Draftsman, DXP, Easytrax, EE Concierge, NanoBoard, NATIVE 3D, OCTOMYZE, Octopart, P-CAD, PCBWORKS, PDN Analyzer, Protel, Situs, SmartParts, TASKING range of embedded software compilers and Upverter.
Founded in 1985, Altium has offices worldwide, with US locations in San Diego, Boston and New York City, European locations in Karlsruhe, Amersfoort, Kiev, Munich, Markelo and Zug, and Asia Pacific locations in Shanghai, Tokyo and Sydney. For more information, click here.
Share on:
Suggested Items
Digital Twin Concept in Copper Electroplating Process Performance
07/11/2025 | Aga Franczak, Robrecht Belis, Elsyca N.V.PCB manufacturing involves transforming a design into a physical board while meeting specific requirements. Understanding these design specifications is crucial, as they directly impact the PCB's fabrication process, performance, and yield rate. One key design specification is copper thieving—the addition of “dummy” pads across the surface that are plated along with the features designed on the outer layers. The purpose of the process is to provide a uniform distribution of copper across the outer layers to make the plating current density and plating in the holes more uniform.
Meet the Author Podcast: Martyn Gaudion Unpacks the Secrets of High-Speed PCB Design
07/10/2025 | I-Connect007In this special Meet the Author episode of the On the Line with… podcast, Nolan Johnson sits down with Martyn Gaudion, signal integrity expert, managing director of Polar Instruments, and three-time author in I-Connect007’s popular The Printed Circuit Designer’s Guide to... series.
Showing Some Constraint: Design007 Magazine July 2025
07/10/2025 | I-Connect007 Editorial TeamA robust design constraint strategy balances dozens of electrical and manufacturing trade-offs. This month, we focus on design constraints—the requirements, challenges, and best practices for setting up the right constraint strategy.
Elementary, Mr. Watson: Rein in Your Design Constraints
07/10/2025 | John Watson -- Column: Elementary, Mr. WatsonI remember the long hours spent at the light table, carefully laying down black tape to shape each trace, cutting and aligning pads with surgical precision on sheets of Mylar. I often went home with nicks on my fingers from the X-Acto knives and bits of tape all over me. It was as much an art form as it was an engineering task—tactile and methodical, requiring the patience of a sculptor. A lot has changed in PCB design over the years.
TTCI Joins Printed Circuit Engineering Association to Strengthen Design-to-Test Collaboration and Workforce Development
07/09/2025 | The Test Connection Inc.The Test Connection Inc. (TTCI), a leading provider of electronic test and manufacturing solutions, is proud to announce its membership in the Printed Circuit Engineering Association (PCEA), further expanding the company’s efforts to support cross-functional collaboration, industry standards, and technical education in the printed circuit design and manufacturing community.