Event
Purpose of the event and overview
The EHW is much more than 3 initials. It represents a need that has been before our eyes for a long time, the need for sustainable transportation and collaboration for technological development. It’s the moment for collaboration between teams, between companies, between the entire world.
The European Hyperloop Week will take place between the 19th and 25th of July in Valencia to bring the people interested in Hyperloop together. Whether you’re a student, an industry professional or just a Hyperloop enthusiast, you are more than welcome to attend and help spread the message of the fifth mode of transportation. The event will be combining the element of student competitions with the setting of professional conferences, where the most recent progress and relevant ideas can be shared between industry experts.
Our main objectives are:
Bring together the best university teams
For years now, student-run teams have been building Hyperloop prototypes and driving innovation forward. Although there is a competitive element, our aim is to bring these teams together where they can learn from each other and improve, elevating Hyperloop prototyping in the process.
Create a Hyperloop ecosystem
The event will bring together industry professionals, students and interested members of the public with a common goal: Hyperloop development. All these different perspectives will start conversations and bring up interesting points that can improve our understanding of the technology and will aid progress in the field.
Change the idea of Hyperloop to a more forward-looking approach
Especially when it comes to student team prototyping, there is a lot of focus on maximum speed and not enough on scalability and sustainable design. We want to change that and push students to contribute more to the real-world applications and development of the Hyperloop. For that, we have introduced judging criteria like scalability and overall design in the EHW competition, alongside a more theoretical competitive category, in which student teams can present their Hyperloop-related research.
Challenge the student teams to more ambitious goals
The students of today are the industry leaders of tomorrow, and what could be better than getting them to think big! There is more to Hyperloop student engagement than max speed competitions, and so many interesting questions to answer and problems to tackle. We have to move forward and we believe in the ability of students to help get us there.
Structure of the week
Introducing new technology in real life means countless considerations, from technical, through economic, to political, and so the European Hyperloop Week will aim to cover as much of those as possible for an all-encompassing analysis of the integration of the fifth mode of transportation in our society. The week will be filled with updates on the developments in and around the field of Hyperloop, as given by industry and academia experts during the conference sessions.
At the same time, each day will give student teams from around the world the opportunity to show their groundbreaking Hyperloop prototype designs to the public and to the industry representatives. Every day will give new excitement to competing teams through assessments of specific categories they have registered for, with a final design exhibition taking place on the weekend of EHW.
The public will be able to attend the conferences that will broaden their understanding of Hyperloop, and also see the competitive aspect of bright young minds working on innovative projects to help make the technology a reality. Below you can find a provisional structure of the event that illustrates the possible topics covered on each day. Keep in mind this is subject to change as we move closer to the event date.
Individual sections of the EHW competition
The exhibiting teams will present their Hyperloop related research, prototypes, and technology solutions in the Design Competition. Systems that stand out through innovation, feasibility, technical evaluation, and public appeal will receive one of six EHW awards. The grading of the systems applying for an award will be done by an impartial jury consisting of people with a technical or design background.
The six awards are:
Mechanical Subsystem Award
Propulsion Subsystem Award
Levitation Subsystem Award
Electrical Subsystem Award
Complete Pod Design Award
Full-Scale Award
How the event came to be
European Hyperloop Week was established when four student Hyperloop teams – HYPED, Swissloop, Hyperloop UPV and Delft Hyperloop – recognized that the development of Hyperloop technology needed a more forward-looking, unified approach. The teams, having met at SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition 2019, decided that an event was needed to connect the ideas surfacing around the globe on the advancement of Hyperloop transportation.
The organisation of EHW was officially launched on 2nd November 2020, however, the planning for it began earlier in January 2020. The organising committee planned the event for the summer of 2020, considering various places and themes for the event, in the end opting for the current format of a week-long combined conference and competition. The team had to halt the preparations towards EHW 2020 due to COVID-19 complications, however, EHW has remained on the radar and the work on it continued throughout the summer of 2020 to make sure EHW 2021 is a success.
It has been clear to the EHW committee since the start that Hyperloop developments cannot be driven by just one week in the summer, and therefore the team aims to create a platform for technological innovation and network for Hyperloop teams and industries all year round through organising happenings, such as webinars about Hyperloop technology. The European Hyperloop Week main event was decided to last for a week to allow the collaboration between industry, academia, and teams to focus on the reality and feasibility of a full-scale Hyperloop transportation system. This approach was meant to facilitate a faster acceleration in Hyperloop technology development as different minds work together during the EHW events.
Currently, the organisation is made up of members from each of the founding teams, with sponsorship and partners from many leading companies in infrastructure, transportation, and Hyperloop technology.
Organized by
Swissloop was founded by students at ETH Zürich in 2016, targeting the advancement of research into high-speed transport systems. The team first explored different hyperloop concepts with its successfully competing pods “Escher” and “Mujinga”, and has set its focus on the development of linear drive systems since 2018. This technology was first implemented within the Hyperloop prototype “Claude Nicollier”, which placed second in the Hyperloop Pod Competition 2019 and received an Innovation Award. This year a team of 25 students from the fields of engineering, design and business further builds upon this concept by designing a pod with a completely new, innovative linear drive system.
From its foundation, Hyperloop UPV has worked continuously in the development of technology which has stood out in several aspects and has set the team in the top 10 teams of all the competition editions, being one of the only 5 teams qualified to all the final stages. In the summer of 2019, Hyperloop UPV also received the Innovation Award due to the integration of all the components in ‘’Turian’’. All these distinctions have motivated the team to work in a better and innovative prototype and Hyperloop subsystems, in addition to the will of taking the next step organizing the first European Hyperloop Week.
Comprising of students from the University of Edinburgh, since 2015, HYPED has been developing technology and publishing research on the Hyperloop concept. As a three-time SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition Finalist, HYPED has the most experience of any UK team in manufacturing Hyperloop prototypes. The focus of HYPED is not only on the technology but also on inspiring and educating the future generations of engineers by undertaking STEM outreach activities across the globe.
Inspired by Elon Musk’s visionary idea and challenge, a group of students from the Delft University of Technology joined forces and founded Delft Hyperloop. Securing the overall first position in the first edition of the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition and being a finalist in every edition of the competition, Delft Hyperloop aims to contribute actively to the development of the concept of Hyperloop and take it to the next level. This year, Delft Hyperloop V, a new team of highly motivated students from various disciplines of TU Delft are working towards proving the technical and commercial viability of the Hyperloop concept.