Vibhakar Mohta

Gallery

A partial record of the people, the machines and the years that led to the rest of this site. Most of it predates anything with a citation.

[ 01 ]

Where it started

Before any of it was research it was a line follower on a taped floor, and a great deal of hot glue.

Two wheels, a strip of tape and a lot of confidence. Everything since has been a version of this with more subscripts.
The same robot on a harder track, green tape marking the ends.
Acrylic, jumper wire and hot glue, from before I had learned what a connector is for.
Where the work actually happened: on the floor, next to the robot, at an hour I would rather not specify.
[ 02 ]

Inter-IIT, and AAROHI

Two months, fifteen people, and a terrace farming robot that had to climb a 40 cm step in front of judges. Written up in AAROHI.

The IIT Kharagpur contingent for the 8th Inter-IIT Tech Meet.
AAROHI on grass, mid-build. Aluminium extrusion, two scissor lifts, and rather more wiring than the CAD had suggested.
Eighteen minutes of demo in front of the judges at IIT Roorkee, at the end of a forty hour train journey to get the robot there.
The team afterwards, with the machine that had just taken the event.
[ 03 ]

Away from the bench

Two years of the National Service Scheme, a stint leading teams at AIESEC, chess since school, and enough competitive CS:GO to turn up and play it.

The XRIG LAN. Somewhere behind the keyboard there is a person who was supposed to be writing a report.
A tree plantation drive with the National Service Scheme. Two years of these, mostly at an hour when nobody wanted to be holding a spade.
NSS again, in the villages around campus. This is where I learned that the hard part of a useful machine is rarely the machine.
The people who made those years worth it.
[ 04 ]

Out in the world

The first time any of the work travelled.

Presenting the lane detection work at IVPAI in Shanghai, my first conference talk. The paper is here.
The Bund, the same week. The first time the work had travelled further than I had.
Somewhere on a coast, deliberately not thinking about robots.