Innovation Café: Making Stuff Faster

http://photos4.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/9/8/3/c/600_271298972.jpeg Join us for the third installation of Cafe Sci's Innovation Cafe series at the Middlesex Lounge. Tim De Chant from NOVA will be discussing Elon Musk's proposal for a new mode of high speed ground transportation, the Hyperloop. The Hyperloop is a capsule that rides on an air cushion through a tubular conduit at speeds over 700 MPH.

CafeSci is a series of science cafes around the country produced by the folks at the PBS NOVA television series. They're bringing scientists and cutting edge technology entrepreneurs to present their work to the public in a fun and social format, over food and drinks.

Presentation starts at 7:00 - get there early tho to find seats and socialize with fellow nerds. Your organizers will be there around 6:30, and will be wearing Meetup pins so folks can find us.

The Middlesex Lounge is located on Mass Ave, a few blocks from the Central Square Red Line stop in Cambridge. For folks who are driving, parking is available at the following locations:

• University Park @ MIT garage - 55 Franklin Street ($10 after 5:00 PM)

• Green Street Garage - 260 Green Street ($6 after 6:00 PM, up to 4 hours)

• Cambridge municipal lots along Bishop Allen Drive (parallel to Mass Ave in Central Square)

• Metered street parking along Mass Ave and nearby streets

Municipal and metered street parking is free after 6:00 (if you can find any, and watch out for the permit parking only signs on most side streets in Cambridge). Parking rates are from Parkopedia.com (http://en.parkopedia.com/) - YMMV.

Hope to see you there :)

From NOVA/CafeSci:

Innovation Café: Making Stuff Faster
(Tuesday, September 17th @ 7pm. Middlesex Lounge, Cambridge MA)

Elon Musk, founder of Paypal, Tesla Motors, and CEO of SpaceX, calls “the Hyperloop” the 5th mode of transportation, an alternative to boats, aircraft, automobiles, and trains. According to the recently released Alpha design, a Hyperloop would enable travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 35 minutes, with an average speed between 600 and 700 miles per hour. According to the Alpha proposal, this amazing technology could be had for an estimated $6 billion. Is it possible? Does this technology even work? And if it does work, can it be constructed with such a relatively cheap price tag?

Conceptual drawings of hyperloop capsules:

http://photos1.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/9/4/1/8/600_281437912.jpeg Tim De Chant is the Senior Digital Editor at NOVA and is the editor of NOVA Next. He has written for Wired, Ars Technica, The Chicago Tribune, and blogs about density at Per Square Mile. His research for NOVA on the Hyperloop has landed him most recently on NPR where he fielded questions about Musk’s dream machine from Science Friday’s devoted audience. (http://www.sciencefriday.com/segment/08/16/2013/-hyperloop-hype-or-future-transportation.html)

At this month’s CafeSci Boston, get the chance to have a drink and pick Tim’s brain for yourself to learn whether or not the imagination of Elon Musk might ever become a reality. It’s all a part of an Innovation Café for Making Stuff: Faster, and it’s happening at Middlesex Lounge on Tuesday, September 17th at 7pm.

Hope to see you there!

Rachel, Mary, Maiken, & Scott
The CafeSci Boston Organizing Team