Pakistani Students to Participate in the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Design Competition 2017

This year again, A talented and passionate Pakistani team is participating in SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Design competition, but this time not only LUMS is participating, now they have combined forces to form a joint consortium of Pakistani universities including LUMS, PIEAS,GIKI, NUST to participate in SpaceX Hyperloop Competition.

They are now a multidisciplinary team comprising of Electrical and Mechanical engineers and hope that Team Pakistan will be able to make it all the way through with an improved design.

This year they have made it to the final design submission round for which if Team Pakistan qualify, they get to present their idea in front of SpaceX engineers after which Team Pakistan will be able to build its pod and race it at SpaceX headquarters at Hawthorne, California, USA in the summer 2017.

The initial qualification is a huge thing in its self since this year even more teams have applied and the competition has sky rocketed. Although, Team Pakistan do not have an official stats as of yet but they think they are the only team from Pakistan to have made the cut.

While speaking with Techlist, Ali Mannan Tirmizi from LUMS (Team member) stated that;

“Our team has come up with the design and is currently running simulations and tests, all the while improving its many aspects. We are looking for potential sponsors who can partner with us shape the future of travel, by financially backing the construction of the pod.

Also we are looking for media partners to raise awareness about the hyperloop movement and highlighting Pakistan’s part in the process.”

SpaceX has built a test track at their Headquarters at Hawthorne California where previously qualified teams have been testing their pods.

Dubai is also working on making the hyperloop a reality. Meanwhile companies like Hyperloop One have been working on their versions of the concept to churn the idea into a reality.

Team Pakistan for SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Design Competition 2017

Team Pakistan is mentored by Dr. Muhammad Sabieh Anwar who is an Associate Professor at the Physics Department at the Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering, Lahore University of Management Sciences.

He has Post-Doctoral experience at University of California Berkley, a D.Phil Physics (University of Oxford, UK), B.Sc. Electrical Engineering (University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore)

Team Pakistan members are:

• Ahmad Sohail (LUMS)
• Ali Mannan Tirmizi (LUMS)
• Barkat Saifee (LUMS)
• Soman Ul Haq (PIEAS)
• Shaur Humayun (PIEAS)
• Salman Ahmad (PIEAS)
• Muhammad Waseem (PIEAS)
• Ahmad bin Arshad (PIEAS)
• Hamza Azhar (GIKI)
• Salman Sheikh (GIKI)
• Carmad Khan (GIKI)
• Hammad Sajid Dar (GIKI)
• Muhammad Muneeb Farhat (NUST)
• Ahad Butt

About Hyperloop

Hyperloop promotes high speed transportation system. It was launched by Elon Musk. He is a successful entrepreneur and a billionaire.

The whole event is surely going to bring revolution in mass transit. The entire event is going to be fun, full of knowledge and above all it is environment friendly. Special arrangements have been made to make this event special and successful.

Hyperloop system is connects Los Angeles to San Francisco with two tubes. The speed at which passengers will be transported at 700mph. Gigantic! Isn’t it?

The whole setup will be powered by Solar Panels. It reduces time taken to travel between two points. It reduces time to more than half. It is quicker than a routine road trip. If estimated it takes about 6 hours to take a road trip but by this Hyperloop the distance is covered in just 35 minutes.

Teams from different universities across the world will participate in the competition of designing pods for the Hyperloop competition. The event will be hosted by Elon Musk.

Previous Year’s Event Highlights

In the summer of 2015 SpaceX invited student teams from all over the world to design pods for the hyperloop. There was a round of registration, initial designs and subsequent final design submissions.  

Team HyperLUMS was the only team from Pakistan to have qualified for the highly prestigious “SpaceX Hyperloop Competition” in 2016. Only 120 teams from a competitive pool of 1000+ teams globally had made it to the SpaceX design weekend in the USA.

HyperLUMS was invited by SpaceX at Texas A&M University, USA  in January 2016 where a team comprising of electrical engineers presented their design infront of a panel of engineers from Tesla, SpaceX and academia.

Competition involved top university teams that included top notch universities such as MIT,Stanford, Georgia Tech, Carnegie Mellon, Virginia Tech, TU Delft among other top institutions from around the globe. 20 Nations competed that included the USA, Egypt, Japan, India, France etc. MIT won the overall prize for the competition.

Innovator and billionaire Elon Musk himself was present at the event. Fortune has published the whole event coverage.

People from Pakistan have always been proving themselves in all fields. This young and talented Team is trying to promote technology and bring Pakistan to a level where it is revolutionized and is a technology hub.