engineering in the bay

VARUN CHILUKURI

STUDENT @ LELAND HIGH SCHOOL · 2× BAY AREA HACKATHON AWARD RECIPIENT

DWG NO. 001SCALE NTSSHEET 1/1

CONTACT

varunchilukuri7@gmail.com GitHub ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Devpost ↗

SELECT A PART TO EXPLORE ↓

Blueprint-style render of a robotic arm, shown from a diagonal side angle. Select a labeled axis to open that part of the portfolio.

MECHANICAL ARM ASSEMBLY PAYLOAD: 250g MAX REPEATABILITY: ±0.5mm MATERIAL: 6061-T6 AL FINISH: ANODIZED

220mm

97° 112° 76° 58° 180°

185mm

142mm

01 BASE 02 SHOULDER 03 ELBOW 04 FOREARM 05 WRIST 06 KNUCKLE 07 GRIPPER 08 COUPLING

PART 01

About

High school student passionate about mechatronics, autonomous robotics, and embedded systems.

I enjoy building working prototypes utilizing CAD, 3D printing, and electrical systems. Currently building personal robotics projects, competing in hackathons, and documenting all my work on GitHub. I also use Raspberry Pis, Arduino, Python, Flask, BLE, and bash when a project needs them.

Interested in autonomous navigation, computer vision, and building robots that solve real-world problems while designing fun hardware systems with various mechanical actuators.

PART 02

Shoulder Axis

Fetch

1ST PLACE OVERALL · CSI HACKS · 82+ TEAMS

Fetch

Co-Founder & Hardware Lead, mechanical + electrical, roughly half the stack

Fetch is a robot that carries a trash can around a gallery and comes when you call it. You drive it around a room once and name each stop, and after that it just goes there on its own. It uses AprilTags and QR codes instead of lidar or a stored map, plus an ultrasonic e-stop so it doesn't run into anyone. Visitors call it by pointing their phone at the AprilTag next to them. Built this with my co-founder Rishith in about eight hours: he did the app and routing, I did the CAD, electronics, and hardware.

Compute Raspberry Pi 4 + Arduino Uno R4
Drive 4× NEMA 17, mecanum wheels
Localization AprilTags + QR destinations
Safety Ultrasonic e-stop

Mecanum Kinematics AprilTag Localization CAD Design Embedded Electronics Raspberry Pi Arduino Uno R4 Hardware Integration

GitHub ↗ Devpost ↗

PART 03

Elbow Axis

Street Sweeper

Street Sweeper robot, front view showing the two-wheel drivetrain

2ND PLACE · INTERACTIVE LEARNING TRACK · MILPITAS HACKS

Street Sweeper

Team build (4 people), hardware & electronics

A trash-collection robot on a two-wheel drivetrain, with a camera-guided intake driven by an ESP32 and an L298N motor driver. The part that actually won our track: you type in commands and the robot runs them while it's out collecting trash, so it doubles as a coding lesson. Built this with a team of four at Milpitas Hacks, splitting up the mechanical build, the wiring, and the intake mechanism, and got the whole thing demo-ready in time for judging.

Compute ESP32
Drive L298N, two-wheel drivetrain
Vision Camera-guided intake mechanism
Track win Command-driven coding lesson while collecting trash

ESP32 Motor Drivers (L298N) Computer Vision Command Parsing Mechanical Assembly Team Collaboration

GitHub ↗

PART 04

Forearm Axis

Hope

IN PROGRESS · SEARCH & RESCUE

Hope (Rail-Mounted Rubble Scanner)

Building with Rishith and one more teammate, in progress

A rail-mounted scanner for search-and-rescue. Basically: a 24GHz mmWave radar can tell if something's moving or just sitting there, but it has no idea where. So instead of hunting for a fancier sensor, we just move a cheap one. A NEMA17 stepper drags it down a 400mm V-slot rail on a GT2 belt, stopping every so often to take a reading, which adds up to a full scan across a rubble pile. A Raspberry Pi runs the whole thing and serves a Flask page over its own WiFi so you can watch results come in live, color-coded.

Sensing 24GHz mmWave radar + webcam + laser marker
Motion NEMA17 + GT2 belt, 400mm V-slot rail
Software Pi control loop + Flask web GUI, live UART parsing
Scope Detects motion/presence, not vital signs (a triage tool)

mmWave Radar UART Frame Parsing Stepper Motor Control Raspberry Pi Flask GT2 Belt Drive Design V-Slot Rail Assembly

PART 05

Wrist Axis

HocDiuTempusSumpsit

HocDiuTempusSumpsit arm extended, gripper and linkage visible

3D-PRINTED · BLUETOOTH CONTROLLED

HocDiuTempusSumpsit (Bluetooth Robotic Arm)

Solo build

A 3D-printed, Bluetooth-controlled 4-bar linkage arm with three axes of rotation, a wireless remote, and a three-finger helical-gear gripper for grasping circular objects. Driven by a PCA9685 servo controller over two ESP-WROOM-32s. The elbow joint originally couldn't hold the wrist and gripper's weight, so I reworked the joint geometry and leverage instead of just using a bigger servo.

Control ESP-WROOM-32 + PCA9685 + BLE
Servos MG996R, SG90, Spektrum A330
Mechanism 4-bar linkage, three-finger helical-gear gripper

4-Bar Linkage Design Gear Design PCA9685 Servo Control Bluetooth / BLE 3D Printing Torque & Leverage Analysis

GitHub ↗

PART 06

Knuckle Axis

More Builds. Same philosophy, smaller footprint. Still, every one of these had at least one thing catch fire, jam, or spin the wrong way.

The Eclipse Lamp internals, Raspberry Pi, gears, and 3D-printed shutter housing

COVERT HARDWARE

The Eclipse Lamp

Looks like a normal lamp. Inside, a motorized shutter cycles open every few seconds while the camera sweeps the room; AI checks each look for a person, locks onto them, and pushes a real-time alert to your phone.

AI Person Detection Motorized Shutter Mechanism Pan Camera Control Real-Time Alerts

GitHub ↗

2ND PLACE · LELAND SCIENCE FAIR

MagLift

An aluminum prototype demonstrating how magnetic cranes work. One motor raises and lowers the magnet, a second rotates the crane, steered by a joystick and two touch pads. Designed, built, and coded solo.

Arduino Uno Stepper Motor Control DC Motor Control Joystick Interfacing Solo Prototyping

MARS-61 herringbone gear reduction prototype next to its NEMA17 drive motor

CONCEPT · ON HOLD

MARS-61 (Advanced Robotic Arm)

Dual NEMA 17 shoulder, a differential wrist, and a custom 5:17 herringbone gear reduction at the base, with cycloidal drives and planetary gearboxes on the research list. On hold for now, but not forgotten.

Herringbone Gear Design Differential Mechanisms Dual-Motor Coordination Gear Ratio Analysis

BUILT FROM SCRATCH

Custom Gaming Mouse

A mouse built from scratch around a Seeed XIAO ESP32-S3, with a PixArt PMW optical sensor for cursor tracking, a rotary encoder for the scroll wheel, and a 3.7V LiPo, plus arrow keys and a spacebar built into the shell on top of normal mouse features. Some parts scavenged from other mice.

ESP32-S3 Optical Sensor Integration Rotary Encoder LiPo Power Management Enclosure Design Firmware Programming

GitHub ↗

PART 07

Skills

A few things I've worked with.

Microcontrollers

Motors

Sensors

Drivers & controllers

Power

CAD & fabrication

Mechanisms

Software

PART 08

Awards & Recognition

1st Place Overall · CSI Hacks (82+ Teams)

For Fetch, co-founded and co-built as hardware lead. Designed, printed, wired, and demoed inside an 8-hour build window.

2nd Place, Interactive Learning Track · Milpitas Hacks (220+ Participants)

For Street Sweeper, a trash-collection robot that doubles as a coding lesson for whoever's driving it.

2nd Place · Leland High School Science Fair (30+ Submissions)

For MagLift, a working magnetic crane prototype. Designed, built, and coded solo.

2nd Place, Team Round · Bret Harte Math Olympiad (40+ Teams)

I've always liked math, especially the team kind.

engineering in the bay

About

Shoulder Axis

Fetch

Elbow Axis

Street Sweeper

Forearm Axis

Hope (Rail-Mounted Rubble Scanner)

Wrist Axis

HocDiuTempusSumpsit (Bluetooth Robotic Arm)

Knuckle Axis

The Eclipse Lamp

MagLift

MARS-61 (Advanced Robotic Arm)

Custom Gaming Mouse

Skills

Awards & Recognition

1st Place Overall · CSI Hacks (82+ Teams)

2nd Place, Interactive Learning Track · Milpitas Hacks (220+ Participants)

2nd Place · Leland High School Science Fair (30+ Submissions)

2nd Place, Team Round · Bret Harte Math Olympiad (40+ Teams)

Black Belt, Taekwondo testing for 2nd degree, Sept. 2026