First Hyperloop Development Competitions Held Within the Scope of Teknofest / Dr.İlhami PEKTAŞ
The ‘Hyperloop Development Competition’, which was organized for the first time this year under the leadership of TÜBİTAK Rail Transport Technologies Institute (RUTE), took place in Kocaeli on August 15-19 within the scope of TEKNOFEST Technology competitions. 57 teams from 55 universities applied to the competition held at TÜBİTAK Gebze Campus. Approximately 250 students from 16 teams who qualified for the competition exhibited the next generation vehicles they had developed. The finalists of the competition will receive their awards at Teknofest, which will be held in Samsun from August 30th to September 4th.
The Hyperloop Development Competition was designed as a technology-oriented competition that will allow undergraduate and graduate students to develop drive technologies with magnetic levitation and gain knowledge of next-generation transportation technologies. Known as the 5th generation transportation technology, Hyperloop allows vehicles to travel in vacuum tubes at supersonic speeds without friction.
Brought to the global agenda firstly by Elon Mask, the owner of Tesla and SpaceX, and enables the mass production steel pipes to be used in the space technology, the Hyperloop Concept predicts freight and passenger transportation of wheelless vehicles reaching a speed of 1,200 kilometers in a frictionless environment of steel tubes.
TÜBİTAK RUTE, TCDD (Turkish State Railways), TÜRASAŞ, TENMAK, YAPI MERKEZI, ERCİYAS STEEL PIPE, BOTAŞ and ARUS supported the project.
The competing vehicles in the event had been developed within the scope of the Hyperloop technology, known as the 5th generation transportation mode. The teams competed their vehicles in the 208-meter-long vacuum tunnel produced by Erciyas Holding and were evaluated in the fields of Capsule Design, Communication with Control Center, Thrust System Design, Levitation System Design, Braking System and Competition Safety.
Participating in the final and award ceremony of the competition organized under the coordination of TÜBİTAK RUTE, Republic of Turkey Minister of Industry and Technology, Mustafa Varank, TÜBİTAK President, Prof. Dr. Hasan Mandal, and TCDD General Manager and ARUS President Hasan Pezük awarded the teams participating in the competition in the categories of “best team spirit”, “jury special”, “special”, “best scenario”, “visual design”, “technology demonstration” and “technical design”.
Establishing one of the best Hyperloop infrastructures in Europe, TÜBİTAK RUTE will supports this technology by building research laboratories and workshops for academics, students and companies who wish to conduct research in the field of Hyperloop in Turkey.
In this project, ARUS members including TÜBİTAK RUTE, TCDD, TÜRASAŞ, YAPI MERKEZİ and ERCİYAS HOLDING have supported all students needs like materials, tools and workshops, etc.
We would like to thank and wish success firstly to TÜBİTAK President, Prof.Dr.Hasan Mandal and TÜBİTAK RUTE Manager, Dr. Mehmet Ali Çimen as well as their team, all the supporting institutions who organized and concluded the Hyperloop Development Competition, successfully.