The team of University of Wisconsin College of Engineering students that competed in the Hyperloop II competition last Sunday at the SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif., earned an innovation award for its elegantly designed and executed propulsion system, the department announced recently.

“We built a pod that worked,” Badgerloop team president Zuf Wang said in a statement. “We weren’t expecting the innovation award, but the judges were all very impressed by the work we put in.”

According to the website, the Badgerloop team, which competed against 600 students from 25 teams around the world, is the only team to receive the innovation award in back-to-back competitions.

The pod cleared all the competition’s technical and safety hurdles but did not advance to the final day.

WARR Hyperloop from Germany won the competition.

Photo courtesy of Jeff Miller/University of Wisconsin–Madison