Grand Prize, 2023
A refreshable Braille module
A coil flips an eccentric cam carrying a rare-earth micromagnet, and the cam then holds the dot in place without power. Peak draw is 1W, and a reading finger cannot push the dot back down.
I build the machines that build things.
I have spent thirteen years building 3D printers in India, for more than 2,000 industrial customers. I also publish open hardware, including a Braille display that won the 2023 Hackaday Prize.
This rotor went to Antarctica.
The part being printed here is a helical wind turbine rotor. In 2018 I coupled one to a 3D printed generator of my own design and took it to Portal Point with Robert Swan's 2041 expedition, where it charged our equipment.
Portal Point, AntarcticaFracktal Works, since 2013.
I co-founded Fracktal Works at nineteen. It now makes everything from desktop printers to an industrial SLS system we designed ourselves, and sells to more than 2,000 industrial customers.
Thirteen years of FracktalGrand Prize, 2023 Hackaday Prize.
Awarded for a refreshable Braille module that raises each dot with a printed cam and a micromagnet. The design is published as open hardware.
How the cell worksWhat I have built.
Most of it is open hardware: the designs are published, free to download and build. How the Braille module works, taken apart.
Fracktal Works
Fracktal's machines
From the first Julia in 2013 to a full range, desktop to industrial SLS, designed and serviced in India.
Best Product, 2017
Tipo, a Braille keypad
Eight of the ten blind users we worked with preferred a feature phone to a touchscreen. Tipo puts physical Braille keys on a smartphone.
Open energy
The Portal Point Generator
A mostly printed dual axial flux generator that made over 100W. It is named after Portal Point, where it ran in 2018.
The record so far.
Fracktal machines run on the floors of more than 2,000 industrial customers, including Ashok Leyland, TVS Motor, Godrej and Decathlon.
Hackaday Prize Grand Prize
The top award in 2023, the last year the prize ran, for an open-source refreshable Braille module.
Unveiled by a Union Minister
The Apollo 350, our industrial SLS printer, was unveiled at IMTEX 2025 by the Union Minister for Heavy Industries.
Installed at Mumbai airport
Jhada, an eight-foot sculpture in 61 printed pieces, came off more than twenty of our machines. 3D Printing Industry called it India's largest 3D printed sculpture.
Shown to Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
As a student, I showed the former President an early Braille display prototype at Srujana in Hyderabad.
Most of what I know about manufacturing, I learned on our own factory floor.
I trained as a mechatronics engineer at Manipal, and in 2013, at nineteen, co-founded Fracktal Works there. We design, build and service 3D printers in India, from desktop machines to industrial SLS. We sell to more than 2,000 industrial customers, and have made more than 100,000 parts.
In 2017 I co-wrote Arduino for Kids, a book that teaches children electronics and robotics. In 2018 I took a 3D printed generator, driven by a small wind turbine, to Antarctica. The interest behind that one is older than the company: my father was an army officer, and I spent part of my childhood in the Andaman Islands, where almost everything arrives by boat.
Off the clock.
Someone once called me an analog person living in a digital world, and it stuck. I wear a Casio every day and collect them, along with Lego spaceships, real and science fiction. Before Fracktal, I spent years drawing in pencil, and I still paint, mostly space, when I get the time.
Casio
Canvas
Lego spaceships
What I am building now.
Fracktal Works
Founder & CEO
3D printers from connected desktop machines to industrial powder-bed systems, designed, built and serviced in India. We also print parts to order.
Since 2013Desktop to SLS2,000+ industrial customers100,000+ parts
fracktal.in
Constellation Aerospace
Founding technical team
Star cameras, on-board computers and imaging optics that let a small satellite take sharp, geolocated pictures from an ordinary platform. The star camera works out the spacecraft's orientation while it is still turning, and the imaging chain stacks its own frames in orbit. It is now designing whole satellites around them too, a 3U and a 1U.
BengaluruITAR-free star cameraStratos-1 flown to 42 kmStacking flight 2027
constellationspace.io
Hathi Labs
Founder
An applied-AI lab. Metorite runs a company's routine work through AI agents, with a person approving anything that goes out. Its manufacturing-software company, Applied Additive, makes RapidTool, which turns a part file into a print-ready fixture in under 20 minutes, without CAD.
Applied AI researchMetoriteApplied Additive
hathilabs.com
Bloc42
Founder
Engineering education for people who want to build things. Its newest programme teaches you to build AI agents that do real work, with no coding, around DeskBot, a small physical AI companion for your desk. The earlier courses run from CAD and 3D printing to electronics, Arduino and IoT.
Hands-on coursesAgentic AI with DeskBotNo coding neededBengaluru
bloc42.com
Tell me what you are building.
