IIT Madras’ Team Avishkar Qualifies For European Hyperloop Week

IIT Madras’ Team Avishkar Hyperloop has qualified for the European Hyperloop Week, to be held in Valencia, Spain, from 19 to 25 July 2021. 

The team will participate virtually due to travel restrictions.

“This is an exciting outcome in trying times, where the students have shown their mettle and verve in accomplishing against odds. Nowhere have I seen a student group clock so much IP material on hyperloop in such a short time. It holds great promise for India,” said S.R. Chakravarthy, Faculty Advisor, Avishkar Hyperloop.

Despite the challenges from the pandemic and the lockdowns, the 40 students of Team Avishkar collaborated on this Hyperloop pod development from their homes to completely revamp the pods’ sub-systems with scalable and efficient technologies. In the past few months, they have manufactured a Hyperloop Pod Prototype and tested the novel technology.

Kishan Thakkar, Team Avishkar Lead and Fourth Year Student, Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, IIT Madras, said, “Creating infrastructure such as tubes and pylons take about 70 percent of the total budget of a Hyperloop corridor. Our research is focused mainly on reducing the cost of this infrastructure and adapting the Hyperloop to the needs of the Indian subcontinent. The team is truly pushing the frontiers of this technology to bring a sustainable future.”

Team Avishkar was the only Asian team to qualify for the finals of SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition 2019 - a global contest organised by SpaceX.  Deloitte India is supporting Avishkar Hyperloop this year.