Elon Musk's 'The Boring Company' keeps challenging the designers to come up with innovative ways of tunneling.

In the company's 'Not-a-Boring-Competition', 10 finalist teams have been revealed:

Out of nearly 400 applicants for the company's 'Not-a-Boring-Competition', 12 teams have made it to the finals after the technical design reviews.

The finalists for the 2021 Not-a-Boring Competition are:

• Biggus Diggus - Hobbyists - United Kingdom
• CU Hyperloop - University of Colorado Boulder - United States
• Dirt-Torpedo - DHBW Mosbach - Germany
• HyperloopUC - University of Cincinnati - United States
• MIT Hyperloop III - Massachusetts Institute of Technology - United States
• Paradigm Boring - Memorial University of Newfoundland and Northeastern University, St. John's - Canada and United States
• Swissloop Tunneling - ETH Zurich - Switzerland
• Team Badgermole - Hobbyists - India and United States
• The Diggeridoos - Virginia Tech - United States
• The Warwick Boring Team - University of Warwick - United Kingdom
• TUM Boring - Innovation in Tunneling - Technical University of Munich (TUM) - Germany
• UMD Loop - University of Maryland - United States

The competition

The aim of the competition called 'Not-a-Boring-Competition' had been stated as " This competition challenges teams to come up with tunneling solutions and answer the question, “Can you beat the snail?”. The Boring Company is gauging interest from everyone (students, companies, hobbyists, etc.) from around the world to design, build, and race their own tunneling solution at The Boring Company’s Dig-a-Factory in the first Not-a-Boring Competition in Spring 2021".

According to The Boring Company's site, the teams will compete to bore a 30-meter tunnel with a cross-sectional area of 0.2 square meters (equivalent to a circle with a 0.5-meter diameter).  Winning categories will include:

• Fastest to complete tunnel
• Fastest to complete tunnel and a driving surface (we will drive a Tesla remote controlled car through the tunnel
• Most accurate guidance system – how far away is the tunnel from its target?

https://www.boringcompany.com/competition