Varun Chilukuri

I build robots, mechatronics and embedded systems, mostly at hackathons. Student at Leland High, San Jose.

Fetch

Co-founder · hardware lead · CSI Hacks

A trash can that drives itself to whoever calls it, finding its way with AprilTags instead of lidar. Built in about 8 hours; I did the CAD, electronics and hardware.

Compute: Pi 4 + Arduino Uno R4

Drive: 4× NEMA 17, mecanum

Navigation: AprilTag + QR, ultrasonic e-stop

GitHub ↗

Devpost ↗

Ceres

Co-founder · hardware lead · Berkeley Robotics Hackathon

An affordable crop-scouting robot that spots diseased leaves with a VLM we trained, and probes the soil with a rack-and-pinion arm. Built in about 7 hours; I did the hardware.

Compute: Pi 4 + Arduino Mega

Drive: 4WD, dual L298N

Sensing: MG996R pan-tilt camera, STEMMA soil probe

GitHub ↗

Demo ↗

Street Sweeper

Team of 4 · hardware & electronics · Milpitas Hacks

A trash-collecting robot you drive by typing commands, so playing with it doubles as a coding lesson.

Compute: ESP32

Drive: L298N, two-wheel drive

Intake: Camera-guided

GitHub ↗

Dial

Voice payments on Mantle · B@BHacks 2.0

Send money home by talking to a voice agent in your own language. The dollars lock on the Mantle blockchain in seconds, family picks up cash at a corner shop with a 6-digit code, and anything left uncollected is refunded automatically. No smartphone, bank or app needed on either side.

Voice: ElevenLabs agent, Gemini 2.5 Flash

Chain: Solidity checks contract on Mantle

Server: Node + Express on Vercel

GitHub ↗

Live ↗

Arrival

Team of 30 · people & safety lead · Nebius × NVIDIA AI Hackathon

One iPhone scan of a kitchen drawn up as a floor plan, with the scan path

One iPhone scan of a kitchen becomes a physics twin, a robot arm working around walking people, and a dataset NVIDIA GR00T trains on. Fine-tuned on it, GR00T passed 39 of 48 trials, up from 26. I stress-tested every room (288 of 288 runs, zero contacts with people), hunted down bugs and gaps, and recorded much of the demo video.

Led: People & safety

Built: RoboCasa layouts within 2.5 cm; 104 demos from 14 human ones

Fixed: Walker contacts 3 → 0; Franka oven 12/14 → 14/14

Shipped: 41 of 418 merged PRs

GitHub ↗

Live ↗

Demo ↗

HocDiuTempusSumpsit

Solo · Bluetooth robotic arm

A 4-bar linkage arm with a three-finger helical-gear gripper. When the elbow couldn't hold the load, I reworked the joint geometry instead of buying a bigger servo.

Control: 2× ESP-WROOM-32 + PCA9685, BLE

Servos: MG996R, SG90, A330

GitHub ↗

The Eclipse Lamp

Covert hardware

Looks like a normal lamp. Inside, a motorized shutter and a sweeping camera spot people and alert your phone.

GitHub ↗

MagLift

Solo · science fair

A magnetic crane prototype with joystick and touch-pad control. Designed, built and coded solo.

MARS-61

Concept · on hold

A heavy arm with a dual NEMA 17 shoulder and a custom 5:17 herringbone reduction. On hold, not forgotten.

Gaming Mouse

Built from scratch

A mouse on a XIAO ESP32-S3 with an optical sensor, LiPo power, and arrow keys built into the shell.

GitHub ↗

WattWatch

Non-invasive current sensing · ESP32

Clips onto an appliance's power cord, with no wiring cut, and checks the current it draws against whether anyone is in the room. Left on in an empty room, it sounds an alarm and sends a push to your phone.

Sensing: SCT-013 current clamp, PIR motion

Compute: ESP32, true-RMS sampling

Alerts: Buzzer, OLED, WiFi push

Board: KiCad schematic + PCB, ERC/DRC clean

GitHub ↗

Currently

Quicksilver 604: My school's robotics team. I also volunteer teaching LEGO robotics to elementary and middle schoolers.

Synopsys Championship: Structure-Borne Vibration Communication and Localization for In-Pipe Inspection Robots

Hackathon Club: Co-founder and vice president. About 40 members; we teach students to build projects and win hackathons.

Almaden Hacks: Helping host this high school hackathon for software and hardware projects in San Jose.

Speech & Debate: Public forum and impromptu.

Awards

1st Overall, CSI Hacks: Fetch · 82+ teams

2nd Open Hardware, Berkeley Robotics Hackathon: Ceres · 80+ teams, high schoolers only

2nd Interactive Learning, Milpitas Hacks: Street Sweeper · 220+ participants

2nd Leland High School Science Fair: MagLift · 30+ submissions

1st Dan black belt, Taekwondo: Testing for 2nd Dan in December

GitHub

Devpost