World 1 · Where it started
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I grew up in Bengaluru.
As a kid I used to take different toys and put them together. I just liked different things.
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My first ever victory
I joined karate in 5th standard. Within a few months, after my yellow belt, I went to a competition in Pune.
We had kata (the set forms) and kumite (sparring). In kata I got nothing. In kumite I got the gold medal. I had never won anything before, not in sports, nothing. I felt on top of the world.
Then Sri Lanka, my first international trip without my parents. I won three gold medals: kata, kumite and group kata.
My dad gave me 5,000 rupees for that trip. It was the first time I ever got cash in my hand to spend. I got my mom a watch, my dad a perfume, my brother an electronic gadget, and a watch for myself.
Six hours on an old PC
I had a craze for doing YouTube vlogs. I wanted to be a biking influencer.
I used to cycle with my friends to UB City Mall and take videos of the showrooms: Ferrari, Lamborghini, Triumph.
I edited on a very old system where the frames were lagging. It used to take me 4, 5, 6 hours. I used to sit down in the night and do it at one stretch.
The bag that holds everything
I always had this scientist kind of dream.
I carried two huge backpacks to school, with almost 30 or 40 notebooks and textbooks. So I wanted to build a single digital bag: a space where I can store an infinite number of things and it stays lightweight. Like a Doraemon pocket.
It's a very impossible thing, but this is what led me to engineering.
The first drone never flew
In 7th standard I found drones through YouTube. That is what sparked the interest in me to take up electronics and build drones.
My brother convinced my dad to help me. I bought every component from one YouTube video and fixed all of them together.
I didn't know how to do soldering. I think I shorted some lines on the board, and when I plugged it in, it sparked. It never ran again.