// silkscreen — top layer · yes, the whole website is a circuit board

Everything I've ever built,
soldered to one page.

Hi, I'm Achyut. I captain FTC team CoZmicMonkeyZ #32329, I'm building SafePath — a robot that watches out for my grandma — and I hand-built the 24-volt battery pack that powers it (fourteen cells, zero fires, still proud). There's also open-source pathing software other FTC teams actually use, an AI tutor for word stems, a three-printer print farm, and a growing pile of Hack Club projects. Scroll down. It gets nerdier.

SHEET 1 — COMPONENT INDEX

The projects

Every project gets a reference designator, like parts on a real board. Newest first, because momentum matters.

2025 → ongoing powered

SafePath

My biggest build: an autonomous robot that patrols the house, finds a person, and notices if they fall — because my grandma lives with us and I wanted something watching out for her when nobody else is. An Orange Pi 5 Plus handles the cameras and decisions, an STM32 Nucleo runs the motors, a Unitree LiDAR maps the room, and the whole thing rolls on tank treads with a touchscreen that telescopes up to eye level so it can actually talk to you. Built for the DRESF science fair. Right now it's on the bench, one stubborn STOP pin away from its first drive.

  • Python
  • STM32
  • LiDAR
  • Computer vision
  • KiCad
  • OpenSCAD
Inside SafePath: the chassis packed with wiring, boards, and the aluminum mast
FIG. 1 — the inside. yes, cable management is on the roadmap
2026 24.3 V and holding

The battery pack

SafePath needed serious power, so instead of buying a pack I built one: fourteen 18650 lithium cells in a 7S2P configuration — seven in series for ~24 volts, two in parallel for capacity — with a Bisida 25 A battery management system protecting every cell group from overcharge, over-discharge, and shorts. From there, power fans out through WAGO distribution buses into DROK buck converters that step it down cleanly for each computer and sensor. I measured every cell, planned the layout, made the connections, and verified the finished pack at 24.3 V. Lithium demands respect, and this project taught me exactly why — and how to earn it.

  • 18650 cells
  • 7S2P
  • BMS
  • Buck converters
  • Power distribution
  • Multimeter discipline
The 7S2P battery pack on the bench with BMS and two buck converters wired up
FIG. 2 — pack, BMS, and bucks on the bench. organized chaos
2026 → ongoing powered

Stems AI tutor

An AI study buddy that makes Greek and Latin word stems actually fun. Instead of staring at a flashcard that says “chron = time”, you chat with it: it quizzes you, builds silly example words, breaks big scary vocabulary into pieces you already know, and adapts to what you keep missing. Started as a design for my own class, now being built so kids everywhere — honestly, anyone — can learn the building blocks of English without it feeling like homework.

  • AI / LLMs
  • Education
  • Chatbot design
  • Web
2026 → ongoing powered

ApexPathing + apex-pathtuner

Open-source autonomous pathing for FIRST Tech Challenge robots — splines, Bézier curves, and smooth path following for mecanum, tank, and swerve drivetrains, built with contributors from a dozen-plus FTC teams. My favorite part is apex-pathtuner: a Python tool that tunes the robot's pathing parameters automatically using Bayesian optimization, talking to the robot over ADB. What used to be an afternoon of guess-and-check becomes “run the script, get snacks.” I also work on the docs site where all the tuning guides live.

  • Java
  • Python
  • Optuna
  • FTC SDK
  • Control theory
GitHub repo ↗ Documentation ↗
2025–26 season competition

CoZmicMonkeyZ — FTC #32329

My FTC team, where I'm captain. I write the competition code for the DECODE season: mecanum TeleOp, red- and blue-alliance autonomous routines, mechanism control, and tuning OpModes — written at practice, under deadline, and tested by driving into things until it stopped hitting them. Captain duties also include fundraising, sponsor hunting, and convincing everyone that yes, we do need to re-tune the auto again.

  • Java
  • FTC SDK
  • Mecanum
  • Team captain
Robot code ↗
Jan 2026 science fair

Fall-Alert Robot (SafePath v1)

Where SafePath started. A two-part system: a robot with a HuskyLens camera for face tracking, distance sensors, and an IMU to find and monitor a person — paired with an Android app I wrote in Kotlin. The app listens to the robot over a socket, sounds a countdown alarm with a big “I'm OK” button, and if nobody presses it, texts emergency contacts with a GPS location. Quiet hours, alert history, text-to-speech — the details that matter when the user is a grandparent, not a programmer.

  • Kotlin
  • Android
  • HuskyLens
  • SMS + GPS
Robot code ↗ Android app ↗
2025 → ongoing shipping

Hack Club projects

I build and ship through Hack Club's Flavortown program, and the pile keeps growing. Highlights so far: Ghost Job Detector, a Chrome extension (v2.5.0) that flags job postings that will probably never hire anyone — the reposted-for-six-months, suspiciously-vague kind. A universal WakaTime/Hackatime tracker, a desktop app that logs your coding time across editors so the hours you grind actually get counted. Index47, an FTC glossary site so rookie teams can look up what a “dead wheel” actually is. And a personality quiz, because not everything has to be serious.

  • JavaScript
  • Chrome extensions
  • Desktop apps
  • HTML/CSS
  • Hack Club
Index47 ↗
ongoing uptime: pretty good

The homelab

The closet is doing jobs. Two NAS builds: a RAID 1 box with mirrored IronWolf drives so family photos survive a drive failure, and a resurrected old laptop running Ubuntu Server with Tailscale and Syncthing as an offsite backup. Plus a local LLM server running models through Ollama and Open WebUI, so my family gets a private AI assistant where nothing ever leaves the house. Next tenant: a JARVIS-style voice assistant on a Raspberry Pi 5.

  • Ubuntu Server
  • RAID 1
  • Tailscale
  • Syncthing
  • Ollama
  • Raspberry Pi
2026 hardware

Magnetic book page tracker

A little gadget that clips onto a book and remembers your page so you don't have to. Designed across three hardware tiers — XIAO ESP32 boards, rotary encoders, N52 magnets, and either an OLED or a round TFT depending on how fancy you want it — with LiPo power, KiCad schematics, and OpenSCAD enclosures. Real product-design practice: same idea, three price points.

  • ESP32
  • KiCad
  • OpenSCAD
  • Product design
Jul 2026 meta

This board

The page you're reading — designed to look like the top layer of a printed circuit board, because I route real ones in KiCad and thought a website should get the same treatment. Hand-written HTML and CSS, no framework, no build step. It exists so that when someone asks “so what have you made?”, the answer is a link instead of a shrug.

  • HTML
  • CSS
  • Netlify
You are here ↑
SHEET 2 — FABRICATION

The print farm

Three printers, zero patience for shipping times.

3D printing started as “I need this one bracket” and became a full-on passion. The fleet: a Bambu Lab H2D Laser Combo with a 40 W laser and AMS 2 Pro — it prints, cuts, and engraves, which feels like cheating — a Bambu Lab A1 that churns out PLA parts fast, and a Creality K1C, the veteran that started it all.

What comes off the plates: SafePath's wheel hub adapters and screen mounts, enclosures for my electronics projects, replacement parts for things that break around the house, and custom products for local businesses through AltruismAltogether, the STEAM-education nonprofit where I'm incoming president — print sales fund STEAM programs in the US, Nigeria, and India. Designing a part in the morning and holding it by the afternoon never stops feeling like a superpower.

  • Bambu H2D + 40W laser
  • Bambu A1
  • Creality K1C
  • Onshape
  • OpenSCAD
  • PLA / PETG / TPU
The print farm: Bambu Lab A1, Bambu Lab H2D with AMS on top, and Creality K1C side by side
FIG. 3 — the farm: A1, H2D (laser goes brrr), K1C
SHEET 3 — BILL OF MATERIALS

Skills, itemized

Everything I can actually do, listed like the parts sheet it deserves to be.

REFSKILLWHERE IT SHOWS UPLEVEL
SW1JavaFTC robot code, ApexPathingdaily driver
SW2PythonSafePath brains, apex-pathtuner, automationdaily driver
SW3Kotlin + Androidthe Fall-Alert emergency appshipped
SW4HTML / CSS / JavaScriptthis site, Index47, Chrome extensionsshipped
SW5C / C++ (embedded)ESP32 firmware, STM32 motor controldangerous
SW6AI / LLMsStems AI tutor, local Ollama server, JARVIS plansbuilding
EE1Battery pack design7S2P pack, BMS wiring, cell matching24.3 V verified
EE2Power electronicsbuck converters, WAGO distribution, fusingno smoke yet
EE3Soldering + wiringeverything with a wire in itdaily driver
EE4PCB design (KiCad)SafePath power board, book trackerbuilding
EE5Sensors + interfacingLiDAR, IMUs, encoders, cliff sensors, UART/I2Cfluent
ME1CAD (Onshape + OpenSCAD)robot parts, enclosures, adaptersfluent
ME23D printingthree printers, three materials, many partsfarm operator
RB1Robot control theoryPIDF, path following, odometry, tuningfluent
SY1Linux + serversUbuntu Server, RAID, Tailscale, Syncthing, Ollamauptime: pretty good
SY2Git + GitHubwhere all of it livesdaily driver
HU1Leading a teamFTC captain, nonprofit incoming presidentlearning fast
HU2Writing docsApexPathing guides, Index47, engineering logsunderrated skill
SHEET 4 — INSPECTION PHOTOS

Field notes

Proof it's all real. More photos rotate in as builds happen.

Battery pack, BMS, and buck converters mid-assembly on the workbench
FIG. A — B1 on the operating table
SafePath chassis interior, full of boards and wiring
FIG. B — SafePath's insides. it's called character
Three 3D printers lined up by the window
FIG. C — the farm, between jobs
FIG. D — reserved for the next build
FIG. E — reserved for competition day
FIG. F — reserved for the science fair
SHEET 5 — DESIGNER NOTES

About

I'm Achyut — a middle schooler who got into robotics through FIRST Tech Challenge and quickly learned that the hard part isn't making a robot move, it's making it move where you meant. That problem never let go of me. It turned into a science fair robot that could watch over a person and call for help, then into SafePath, then into ApexPathing, where FTC teams everywhere are building the pathing library we all wished existed.

The pattern with everything I make: I want to understand it all the way down, and I want the understanding to turn into something real that helps someone. The battery pack helps SafePath run. SafePath helps my grandma. The Stems AI helps kids stop dreading vocabulary. The print farm helps fund STEAM programs through AltruismAltogether in the US, Nigeria, and India. Even the silly Hack Club stuff helps — mostly by teaching me that finishing and shipping is a skill of its own.

NOTE 1: More projects exist than fit on this sheet. For the unabridged version, ask me about the commit messages.