Vijay Raghav VaradaGet in touch

Vijay Raghav Varada

A mechatronics engineer by choice and an entrepreneur by chance. I have run Fracktal Works since 2013 and publish most of my projects as open hardware.

Work with meGet in touch
Vijay Raghav Varada, smiling, holding a mint green gravel bicycle up by its frame.

I have built manufacturing hardware since I was nineteen, and published much of it as I went.

Rohit Asil and Vijay Raghav Varada as students at Manipal, each holding one of the first Julia 3D printers they built, with printed test parts on the table in front of them.
Manipal, at the start: Rohit and me with the first printers we built, because buying one was not an option.

I grew up partly in the Andaman Islands, where my father, an army officer, was posted. On an island nearly everything arrives by boat, and you learn early what that costs. My interest in making things where they are needed started there.

I studied mechatronics, robotics and automation at the Manipal Institute of Technology, where I was one of the founding members of the robotics team, RoboManipal, in 2010, and its head by 2012. In June 2013, at nineteen, Rohit Asil and I founded Fracktal Works because we were tired of waiting weeks for parts. It now makes everything from desktop printers to industrial SLS systems, and sells to more than 2,000 industrial customers, among them Ashok Leyland, TVS Motor, Godrej, Decathlon and several IITs.

As a student I demonstrated an early Braille display prototype to Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. In 2016 a later version reached the semifinals of the Hackaday Prize, and GenX Nano and Campus Diaries named me in their 25 Under 25 for work in science and technology.

In 2017 Tipo, a Braille keypad for smartphones, won the Hackaday Prize's Best Product award and fifth place overall, and I co-wrote Arduino for Kids with Priya Kuber and Rishi Gaurav Bhatnagar. In 2018 I took a 3D printed generator to Antarctica with Robert Swan's 2041 expedition. In 2019 iCONGO, with the United Nations, gave me the REX Karmaveer Global Fellowship and the Karmaveer Chakra (Bronze).

In 2023 I won the Grand Prize of the Hackaday Prize, in the competition's final year, for a refreshable Braille module. Each dot is moved by a printed cam carrying a magnet a millimetre across, a far cheaper mechanism than the piezoelectric actuators in commercial displays. The design and build logs are published as open hardware.

Beyond Fracktal, I am on the founding technical team at Constellation Aerospace, which builds satellite payloads. I founded Hathi Labs, an applied-AI lab behind Metorite and Applied Additive, the maker of RapidTool, and Bloc42, which teaches engineering hands-on. What I do at each.

I live and work in Bengaluru.

The RoboManipal team, about twenty students with competitor lanyards, posed on green arena carpet around their two Robocon robots, one carrying the RoboManipal logo.
RoboManipal at Robocon, with both of that year's robots.

2010 to now

RoboManipal

Fracktal started because this robotics team could not get parts fast enough.

In 2010 a handful of us at Manipal started what became RoboManipal, the university's official robotics team. I was on it for nearly three years and led it from March 2012. I designed and built the line-following sensors the robots navigated by, wired a PS2 controller into the manual robot and wrote the grid-following and counting logic for the autonomous one. As a mechatronics student I also acted as go-between for the team's mechanical and electronics groups.

Outside Robocon, robots I built won a run of student contests between 2011 and 2013. Robo Kombat went to an all-aluminium machine that lifted opponents and tipped them over; Bridge Builder to a wireless pick-and-place robot run from a PS2 controller; Defense of the Ancients at Techtatva to one that fired cannonballs. At Techfest 2013, IIT Bombay, Magneto, the Real Steel robot contest, went to a robot steered only by the driver's wrist, over a radio protocol I wrote for it. The ring clip below is that contest.

Another, Mastermind, was a robot controlled by brainwaves, which made the finals of National Instruments' NI-YANTRA in 2012. The EEG work behind it became a paper the following year.

I drove the manual robot at Robocon 2012 and 2013, at MIT Pune. In 2013, the year I led the team, we qualified for the Super League rounds that went out on national television.

Fifteen years later the team is forty students competing at RoboCup and ABU Robocon: RoboManipal. Fracktal Works takes interns from it, trains them on our factory floor and sponsors the team's prizes.

The robots in action.

The autonomous robot at Robocon, finding its own way across the arena.
A line follower on a taped track, loops and crossings included.
Magneto, the Real Steel contest at Techfest 2013, IIT Bombay, which my robot won. It was steered only by the driver's wrist.

Timeline.

Two photographs side by side: a younger Vijay carrying the first Julia printer he built, and Vijay today beside a full size Twin Dragon industrial machine.
Thirteen years between the two photographs.
  1. Childhood

    Andaman Islands

    Part of my childhood, on my father's army posting.

  2. Student

    Manipal Institute of Technology

    Studied mechatronics, robotics and automation.

  3. Student

    Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

    Demonstrated an early Braille display prototype to the former President at Srujana, Hyderabad.

  4. 2010

    RoboManipal

    Co-founded the university's robotics team, which still competes.

  5. 2013

    Robocon Super League

    Led the team and drove the manual robot when RoboManipal reached the televised national rounds.

  6. June 2013

    Fracktal Works

    Co-founded with Rohit Asil, at nineteen. The first machine was the Julia, and the company still makes it.

  7. 2013

    Business plans

    First at NITK Engineer 2013, and at Manipal's MUTBI Innovation Day and Provinance, the year Fracktal began.

  8. 2015

    Seed round

    Raised from Aarin Capital and the MEMG family office.

  9. 2016

    25 Under 25

    Named by GenX Nano and Campus Diaries for work in science and technology.

  10. 2016

    Hackaday Prize semifinal

    For an open-source refreshable Braille display.

  11. 2017

    Best Product, fifth overall

    Hackaday Prize, for Tipo: a Braille keypad for a smartphone.

  12. 2017

    Arduino for Kids

    Packt, with Priya Kuber and Rishi Gaurav Bhatnagar.

  13. 2018

    TEDxYouth@Hyderabad

    Gave the talk Technology Changemaker, now on TED.com.

  14. 2018

    Antarctica

    A printed turbine and the Portal Point Generator, taken south with 2041. Power Harvesting semifinal, and a part in Eco-Business's documentary on the trip.

  15. 2019

    Karmaveer Global Fellowship

    The REX Karmaveer Global Fellowship and Karmaveer Chakra (Bronze), from iCONGO with the United Nations.

  16. 2019

    Jhada

    An eight-foot sculpture designed by the studios Nudes and Folds, printed in 61 pieces on more than twenty of our Julia machines.

  17. 2023

    Grand Prize

    For the refreshable Braille module, in the Hackaday Prize's final year.

  18. January 2025

    Apollo 350 SLS

    Our industrial SLS 3D printer, unveiled at IMTEX by the Union Minister for Heavy Industries.

  19. 2025

    Embedded India

    Spoke on open-source hardware for accessibility.

  20. Now

    Beyond Fracktal

    Founding technical team at Constellation Aerospace; founder of Hathi Labs and Bloc42.

A young Vijay Raghav Varada, in a suit, demonstrating an early Braille display prototype on a table of electronics to Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, with a crowd and a photographer watching.
Showing an early Braille display prototype to Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam at Srujana, Hyderabad. The Hindu ran this photograph in its piece on Kalam's question for every technology: what else can it do?
A copy of Arduino for Kids, published by Packt, by Priya Kuber, Rishi Gaurav Bhatnagar and Vijay Varada, lying on a desk.

Packt, 2017

Arduino for Kids

The right time to meet a microcontroller is before somebody tells you it is hard.

Written with Priya Kuber and Rishi Gaurav Bhatnagar and published by Packt, it teaches children to build electronics and simple robots.

The book at Packt, or on Amazon.

Vijay Raghav Varada in a yellow expedition parka on an Antarctic shore, holding a mast topped by a 3D printed vertical axis wind turbine painted in the Indian tricolour, with a glacier behind.
The turbine was printed on a desktop machine and run at Portal Point, Antarctica. The Deccan Chronicle's 2018 profile linked it to my childhood in the Andamans.

Papers and open hardware.

Papers

Open hardware

  • Hackaday.ioFive projects, seven years of build logs, 103k views on the Braille module.
  • Hackster.ioWrite-ups of the same projects.
  • GitHub44 repositories. Firmware, board files, the Braille cell.

Elsewhere online.

Build logs, code and updates. I publish most projects while they are in progress, so these profiles are usually more current than this site.

LinkedInvijay-raghav-varadaThe professional record, and the fastest way to reach me.GitHub@vjvaradaBraille cell, Tipo keypad, firmware. 44 repositories.Hackaday.io@vjvaradaSeven years of build logs. The Grand Prize project lives here.Hackster.io@vjvaradaThe same projects, written up for Hackster's readers.X@vjvaradaShort notes from the bench, mostly while something is failing.YouTube@vjvaradaMechanisms moving, and machines being taken apart.Instagram@vjvaradaThe workshop, the travel, and what is on the build plate.Medium@vjvaradaLonger pieces on manufacturing and open hardware.FacebookvjvaradaWhere the older work and the Antarctic expedition are archived.

Tell me what you are building.

Get in touchLinkedIn
A pixel-art silver Casio showing the time in Bengaluru.
Bengaluru time, on a Casio.