The Hyperloop UPV experience.

Finally, I arrived at Munich, safe and sound, to finish my exams and my final project. And finally I have some time (not a lot, but enough!) to think after the competition. Here are my thoughts (I hope it's not too large!):

After one and a half years of hard work, I'm really happy to have shared this incredible adventure with an amazing team, #HyperloopUPV.

When we first thought about building our own Hyperloop prototype, David Pistoni, Daniel Orient and me had many concerns: we didn't have a team, we didn't have the resources nor the space to work, plus... a tiny problem: each one of us was in one part of the world .. Germany, Sweden and Spain. We knew the way was hard, but we finally decided to accept the challenge and start building.

From among more than 300 applicants, we chose 30 of the top students at the Universitat Politecnica de València and we started raising supports from companies. I learnt a lot from this process because I had never asked for support to anybody and at that point I had to ask top managers in companies to believe in my project.. believe me, it was challenging!

At the same time, the University gave us a place to work, something essential to connect and to create a robust team (thanks!).

Just after having created the team, another great opportunity arised: a Spanish professor from Valencia working at Purdue, one of the best American Universities in the aerospace field, asked us to collaborate. We accepted again the challenge and, despite living in very different time zones (6 hours ahead), at both sides of the Atlantic ocean, with weekly meetings and a lot of patience, we started making progress and signed an agreement to participate in the competition together with our prototype: #theAtlanticII.

During the development process, we understood the risks of dealing with a transatlantic team, especially during the assembly, when we had to assemble all subsystems together onsite and make sure everything worked as expected. Obviously, not everything worked at the first try and we had to be ready for everything. Suddenly we became problem-solvers, bottleneck-removers, time-expanders.. The last stage was the most challenging, but concentration allowed us to erase the line between night and day to have the prototype on time.

After many sufferings, and several batches of students traveling to the USA to assemble the prototype, we finally gave birth to The Atlantic II, one of the most amazing things I've ever done in my life. Surprisingly, the prototype was one of the most powerful machines at the competition and when advisors first saw it they looked scared! But then we started all safety tests and then we started to get excited. Sadly the last one, the open-air test, didn't work, reason why we couldn't try our prototype in the official Hyperloop tube!!

Anyway, despite of that, I must confess I cried tears of joy when I first saw the prototype moving, I couldn't believe that what had first been envisioned as a dream in a blackboard had now become a living piece of engineering, our first real creation, and that it was actually working! We had made history! Goosebumps!

But, if there's something I should say is: THANK YOU, guys, thanks to all of you, members of the team, because without you nothing in this adventure would have been possible:

Ferran Quiles Rodas, Iván Torres Játiva, Jose Felix Gonzalez, Manuel Martinez, Xavier Portilla.. their constant work was really admirable. I cannot express with words how the Avionics team worked tirelessly to be the brain of the Hyperloop. Modellic for the whole team, methodic in their procedures, and always motivated and ready to work, without any complain, without any sign of wear! GUYS YOU ARE AMAZING.

Rafael P. Fragoso, Pablo Hernando, Ferran Gil Castellblanch, ángel Benedicto Elena, Guillermo Tortosa Martínez, the Structures team, they were able to design and manufacture every structural part of #theAtlanticII with their expertise and the help of the sponsors! Dealing with third parties was difficult due to the high uncertainty, but in the end they solved all problems and achieved an impressive result. Also thanks to the support of Alfonso Reyes in the design part and manufacturing of the shell, chassis and aluminum components!

Javier Arroyo, Daniel Fons Sanchez, Mari del Río, Alberto Ibernon Jimenez, Daniel Verdú, the magnific 5 did an impressive work in the Energy system, developing a superpowerful battery system, the most powerful of the whole competition, but at the same time they had the ability to demonstrate safety and reliability and fine work, without any major incidents in assembly. CONGRATS!

Francisco Moya, did also an impressive work also designing the Propulsion system and dealing with suppliers and Federico Lluesma with the support of Salvador Belenguer help us understand how our system would work thanks to their extensive experience in mathematical analysis and modelling of the system Dynamics.

The Design team helped us have a powerful identity, thanks to Ana Sarrión Jiménez, who was vital in the graphic design, Pablo Argudo and José Vizcarro in the 3D and rendering phase, and Vilz Tord/Carmen Fortea (Corinne Films) in video editing and music production. Colin Dooley and Esther Senis also participated in the VR and Architecture design, thanks!Also important was the support of Fernando Galtier in the economics side, and of Pablo Fernandez with the partners and fundraising.

And last but not least: David Pistoni and Daniel Orient, the Direction team. We, the three musketeers, took care of every tiny detail to made it to Los Angeles with a wonderful design, a motivated team and of course, technical excellence! I might say it was not easy to manage such a large team, David and me had experience with small teams in Makers UPV but now was the big step towards larger organisations. We've learn a lot during the process and it has helped us to know our strengths and our points to improve. From David I learnt to be clear in my statements and to deal with people, and from Dani I learnt to remain calm and to leave my fear behing dealing with dangerous elements such as magnets or batteries. Thank you also to Vicente Dolz, our advisor, and to Germán Torres, for supporting the project too. Thanks bros!

Hyperloop UPV has succeeded in bringing the spirit of Hyperloop to life, creating a unique prototype that is fully autonomous, 100% electric and vacuum-ready, and which hovers at high speeds thanks to passive levitation skis, thinking always on scalability. We want to thank all partners of the project, specially Universitat Politècnica de València UPV, Altran (Altran Espa?a) (Premium partner), ISTOBAL Espa?a, MAHLE Nagares and Purdue University, for helping to make this incredible adventure a reality, we believe we must keep pushing and breaking boundaries. 

As a summary, I will say that this was one of the most amazing experiences in my life, I've travelled across the entire States, met incredible people and I had the opportunity to contribute with my grain of salt to the future of transportation, we are living exciting times and there's only one thing I have clear: I will never settle.

New and fresh challenges are arising, and amazing things are yet to come, so let's just keep pushing, let's be the future.

Juan Vicén, Munich, 10th September 2017.