The Not-a-Boring Competition presents participating teams with a rather precise task: Who can drill a 30-meter-long tunnel with a diameter of 50 centimeters, as accurately as possible, through which a remote-controlled car can drive? Almost 400 teams worldwide answered the Tesla founder's call and participated in the competition. The 70-person TUM Boring team, predominantly students from the Technical University of Munich, survived the review process of their submitted design and was invited to the finals along with 11 other teams. The team has to cover its own travel costs and on-site maintenance work and has therefore asked for support via crowdfunding. In return, donors receive goodies such as design drawings, beer mugs, and T-shirts. For larger donations starting at 300 euros, supporters receive the right to name tunnel segments or machine parts. A total of 12,608 euros was raised. The team has set 10,000 euros as the threshold for successful funding.
TUM Boring on the trail of TUM Hyperloop
The goal of the Tunnel Competition is to enable new mobility solutions through efficiently excavated tunnels. The project's Kickstarter page states:
"We believe that simply renewing existing infrastructure isn't enough. Instead, we should rethink mobility from the ground up and design it in three dimensions!"
Tunnels help solve many of today's pressing mobility problems, including the most notorious: traffic jams. We can use them for innovative concepts like the Loop or the Hyperloop. Individualized point-to-point transport without stops enables unprecedented travel speed, comfort, and flexibility."
Mobility in tunnels would make it possible to transform streets into “green and recreational spaces” that are “specifically tailored to the needs of cyclists, pedestrians and residents”.
This is not the first time that a student project at the Technical University of Munich has successfully participated in an Elon Musk Challenge. The team TUM Hyperloop – initially known as WARR Hyperloop – has participated in and won all four editions of the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition. The goal is to propel a capsule in a partially vacuum tube as fast as possible. The Munich-based company holds the speed record at 482 km/h.
