GoAERO Stage 1 Winner

When an ambulance struggled to reach a medical emergency in rural Hungary last summer, Valter Somlai witnessed firsthand the critical gaps in emergency capabilities. “It took forever for the ambulance to arrive, and then it didn’t even have the proper equipment to handle the situation,” he recalls. “And trying to land a helicopter wasn’t feasible because of all the trees.”

This experience reinforced what Valter and his Team Elevate Delft co-captain Maan Pandya already believed: “There is no point in doing this without such a mission.”

For these Delft University of Technology students, “this” refers to the humanitarian purpose of the global GoAERO challenge. Their team is one of hundreds working to develop a new generation of flyers that can effectively deploy to save lives in extreme weather disasters, urgent healthcare situations, and other emergencies currently inaccessible to rescue and response vehicles such as helicopters, drones, and firetrucks.

Valter, 21, and Maan, 20, are both completing their undergraduate degrees in aerospace engineering at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. Together, they lead a team of nearly 20 students united in what they acknowledge is a Herculean effort to build their flyer.

“There are a lot of challenges – finding the money, space to work, time, sponsors, and more,” Maan explains.  “So, it has taken a lot of persuasion to convince people that we can successfully make this work.  But we are all very motivated, not just to build an eVTOL but to do so because we want to help save lives.”

The team is even more motivated than ever because it was recently named one of 11 winners of GoAERO’s Stage 1, which recognized its flyer design.

“Some of us live in the same place, so from the moment we found out we won, we started celebrating,” Valter exclaims. “It was a really nice moment.”

Maan echoes this sentiment, adding that being named a Stage 1 winner “was totally unexpected. But it is nice that all our efforts were fruitful in the end.”

This shared success has further strengthened the bonds within the team. Maan and Valter are good friends and “bench mates” in their studies, so “we share a lot of interests and experiences.”

They share a unique goal for their GoAERO emergency response flyer: to make it foldable.  “We want it to be compact and easily transportable so it can fit into the back of a truck, if necessary,” Maan notes.  “And it will be autonomous with remote oversight, allowing a human operator to monitor and intervene when needed.”

Conversations with their local fire department shaped their vision for the vehicle. What’s notable is that what the fire personnel described as the most essential components and capabilities for a prospective emergency response flyer were “exactly what we were already considering and working on,” Valter relates.

Both Valter and Maan are honors students at Delft. Valter is performing research in Particle Image Velocimetry and has participated in numerous group projects designing various types of aircraft. It was through one of these projects that he began developing his leadership skills as well as experience in building an eVTOL. He will soon have his first internship at Rocket Factory Augsburg as a GNC (guidance, navigation, and control) engineer to gain more experience in the aerospace industry.

While Valter focuses on physical testing and aircraft design, his co-captain brings complementary skills to the team. Maan -- who lived in India, where he regularly saw the problems emergency responders faced due to constant traffic congestion -- explains that his academic interests are more geared towards utilizing computational and mathematical concepts for aerospace. For his honors thesis, he is working on “a machine learning method for repositioning agents in a swarm to capture accurate reconstruction of any field described by a time-dependent PDE (partial differential equation).” 

Beyond academics, he is interested in entrepreneurship and was selected as one of Delft’s representatives for the IDEA League challenge program. He traveled to universities throughout Europe to learn new strategies for implementing ideas in real life and connecting with like-minded individuals. Prior to GoAERO, he worked with AeroDelft, a student team, assembling a full-scale hydrogen aircraft. 

Maan’s interest in aircraft and aerospace engineering is rooted in his childhood. Both of his parents are engineers, and “like many kids my age, I was always really excited by fast things. This included fast cars, planes, rockets and everything else that is fast. My path to aerospace was natural. Even so, I was into cars more. But aerospace engineering is a more specialized field with many more challenges to be addressed, especially in the current day. Emergency rescue was not the challenge on my mind, but after understanding the problem, I do see the need and have developed an interest in using my skills for impactful advancements.”

While Valter liked science growing up, it wasn’t until high school that he “started seeing and reading content and watching YouTube videos about the engineering processes behind iconic aircraft” that his interest in aerospace engineering was fully sparked.

“I chose this major due to its challenging but inspiring nature,” he says. “Additionally, because the aerospace industry is always on the cutting-edge of technology and continuously advancing, it is a very dynamic and exciting area to work in.”

Valter is drawn to pioneers in the industry such as Elon Musk, Burt Rutan, and Kelly Johnson, “who have the courage to do things differently, break boundaries and change people’s perception about what is possible. 

Maan also draws inspiration from people like Musk – “people who are not afraid to fail in the process of driving change are the ones who inspire me regardless of their industry.”

Both co-captains also draw inspiration from unlikely sources. “It may not be so surprising that as an aerospace engineering student I love to spend some of my free time using Microsoft Flight Simulator,” Valter says, noting that in this year’s edition, “you can perform rescue missions in a simulation environment with multiple types of vehicles and many scenarios. Although it is not the same as in real life, it can still be useful to get a better idea of the process and about design aspects you wouldn’t think of otherwise.”

For Maan, inspiration comes from something a little more old-school and pedestrian.  “I’m not sure how common this is, but I actually used to be really into paper airplanes,” he notes. “I used to sit down and look up different world record builds and try to see if I could get anything close to it. It definitely allowed me to get a rough idea of how planes worked.”

Beyond their individual motivations, the co-captains recognize the importance fo guidance in their ambitious project. The co-captains are fortunate that at Delft they have numerous mentors, including Professor Daniele Ragni, whose attitude towards tackling projects is “really refreshing. He taught us to get to the point of things, both in terms of the design process and presenting it in our report.  He also stresses focusing on what really matters and how to not waste time in group projects. This gave us a feeling of him being a big brother and mentor.”

With this mentorship and the insights gained from GoAERO’s Expert Lectures, the team continues to expand their understanding of eVTOL development. They’re rapidly building their expertise through hands-on experience and guidance from industry leaders. Their vision extends beyond just creating another aircraft -- as Maan says without hesitation, “with our flyer, we aim to democratize emergency rescue.”

 

To highlight your GoAERO Team, contact us at info@goaeroprize.com. 

 

REMINDER: Stage 2 Registration Documents are available here.

Benefits for Teams can be found here.

Team Summit: Let us know if you can join here.