Hackaday Prize Grand Prize
The top award in 2023, the last year the prize ran, for an open-source refreshable Braille module.
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 worksThe record so far.
Fracktal machines run on the floors of more than 2,000 industrial customers, including Ashok Leyland, TVS Motor, Godrej and Decathlon.
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.
In 2023 I won the Grand Prize of the Hackaday Prize for a refreshable Braille module. Commercial displays, which cost thousands of dollars, raise each dot with a piezoelectric actuator. Mine uses a printed cam and a magnet a millimetre across.
Beyond Fracktal, I am on the founding technical team at Constellation Aerospace, a Bengaluru maker of satellite payloads whose star camera can fix a spacecraft's orientation while it is still turning. I founded Hathi Labs, an applied-AI lab behind Metorite, which runs a company's routine work through AI agents, and Applied Additive, whose RapidTool designs a print-ready fixture in under 20 minutes. And I founded Bloc42, which teaches engineering hands-on and now runs a course on building AI agents. What each company does, and my part in it.
What I have built.
Each of these has been built, used and revised, and most are published in full. How the Braille module works, taken apart.
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.
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.
What I am building now.
What each one makes, and what I do there.
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 that looks for the places where AI multiplies what a business can do, then builds the product. 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
In the press.
Unlike commercial units, which use expensive piezo-electric actuated pins, his design utilizes an array of tiny electromagnets to rotate even tinier cams.
Over 20 of the company's industrial 3D printers were used to construct parts for the Jhada installation.
What started just as a college project is now a registered 3D printing company which has clients from Ludhiana to Coimbatore, and even some multinationals.
Only about 10% of blind people around the world can read Braille. One primary reason is the high cost of Braille displays.
What I talk about.
Keynotes and workshops for conferences, engineering teams and universities. I bring machines and printed parts for the audience to handle.
Many small factories, or one big one
When a network of small, local printers beats a large factory, when it loses, and how to tell which case you are in before spending money.
KeynoteOpen hardware, and what it costs
What publishing hardware openly has cost me and brought in, from ten years of Hackaday Prize entries and one Grand Prize.
Keynote or firesideMaking physical products in India
What thirteen years of sourcing, hiring and pricing hardware in India have taught me.
Keynote or panelHow I can help.
Founder coaching
For founders of hardware companies, usually in their first few years.
- Turning a prototype into something a factory can make
- Making your first engineering hires on a hardware budget
- Pricing, margin and hardware unit economics
- Whether raising money will solve the problem in front of you
Monthly, small cohort. Ask about availability.
Consulting
For teams moving 3D printing from the prototype lab into production.
- Designing parts for 3D printing, and knowing when not to print them
- An in-house print shop that keeps running after the person who set it up moves on
- Technical due diligence on hardware and manufacturing investments
- Workshops for engineering teams, using your own parts
Project or retainer. Limited slots.
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.