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Team Éirloop pictured with Minister of State, John Halligan at the launch of Team Éirloop at DCU on Tuesday, June 26th.

DCU students prepare for take-off with team Éirloop at SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Championship

A number of Dublin City University students are getting ready to compete as part of team Éirloop at the upcoming SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Championship in California in July.

It is the first time that a team from Ireland will be taking part in this prestigious competition.

Dubbed the “Olympics of Engineering” the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod competition consists of twenty student led teams from top institutions across the world designing and building hyperloop prototypes to travel at the highest possible speed down a one-mile vacuum tube at the SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California. The 20 teams were selected from over 700.

Sixteen DCU students, including Bartlomiej Bara (captain Team Éirloop), Akhil Voorakkara (Head of Electronics for Team Éirloop) and Nina Kanti (Lead Software Architect for Team Éirloop), joined with team members from University College Dublin (UCD), Trinity College Dublin (TCD), Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT), Institute of Technology Tallaght (ITT) Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology (IADT) and National University of Ireland, Maynooth (NUIM) to unveil the hyperloop pod to an audience at DCU including Minister of State for Training, Skills, Innovation and Research and Development, John Halligan, TD.

Speaking at the event Minister of State, John Halligan, TD said:

“Team Éirloop are an inspiring group of young, driven and ambitious students. As an entirely student led team from several Irish colleges and institutes of technology, Team Éirloop have shown great initiative and resourcefulness. Their success to date is extraordinary, making it to the finals of the Hyperloop competition on their first try. There is no doubt that the accomplishments of Irish projects, such as Éirloop, positively impact Ireland’s international reputation for science and innovation excellence and I wish the team all the best as they approach the finals of the competition this July.”

Prof. Lisa Looney, Executive Dean, Faculty of Engineering and Computing, DCU, said:

“The Éirloop team has illustrated what can be achieved when the analytical thinking and the expansive creative thinking which we strongly associate with engineers, are combined with people, teamwork and communication skills and, most importantly, with a deliberate growth mindset. The future of Irish technological innovation is in safe hands.”

DCU student and Lead Software Architect for Team Éirloop, Nina Kanti said:

“It has taken a huge amount of hard work, commitment and dedication by everyone involved to reach this point. We are most grateful for all the support which has been provided to us and we are looking forward immensely to competing at the upcoming event. We are particularly proud that we are the first Irish team to qualify and one of only six European teams taking part. We are on a mission to show that Ireland is among the leaders in innovation, engineering and technology and the upcoming competition is a super opportunity to showcase our work and compete against the best in the world.”