Life so far.

A few milestones. Several bugs. Still running.

95%+ built without coding agents.Started using coding agents in late 2025. By then, I’d already built and deployed autonomous systems, written learning and control software, competed at ICRA and presented at ROSCon India. The debugging jokes below are lived experience.

2006Born

Hello World!

Arrived without a manual. Made myself heard.

Early years

Learned to walk. Learned to talk.

Balance took a few iterations. Talking was harder to switch off.

2014Age 8

Two computers. Unlimited plans.

Intel Pentium dual-core. 2 GB RAM each. 28–100 GB HDDs. My first compute cluster, if you’re generous.

2015Age 9

First programs.

Scratch, QBasic and web development. Things moved on screen because I told them to. This seemed like a loophole.

2016Age 10

Java. My first proper language.

Hello World now required a class.

2017–2022Ages 11–16

Code meets solder.

Built a Wi-Fi jammer, sensor-and-relay automation and an autonomous-wheelchair prototype. Designed PCBs, worked on motor synchronization, and built a mechanism that drove two grabbers from one motor. Joined a quadcopter build and worked with seniors on CNC-style 3D-printer prototypes. Debugging now involved wires and gears.

2018–2022Ages 12–16

The code grew wheels.

WRO India: regional Junior second place in 2019; RoboMission Senior Silver Badge at nationals in 2022. Bugs could now leave the desk.

2022Age 16

First heartbreak.

No stack trace. Terrible documentation.

2023–2024Ages 17–18

The wheels got bigger.

Deployed autonomy on a real golf cart: Model Predictive Contouring Control (MPCC), learned policies and industrial controls. No simulator reset button.

Kaustubh and the project team with the physical autonomous golf cart — The real golf cart, with the team. Inside the build

2023–2025Ages 17–19

Four offers. No applications.

Founders and recruiters approached me with four job offers, including three across Physical AI, controls engineering and reinforcement learning in Isaac Sim. Turned down all four to keep building my own systems. Robots remained the career plan.

2025Age 19