Vihaan Parikh

Advancing independence through research, engineering, and community service.

Vihaan presenting his research to a crowd at the science fair Vihaan wearing Apple Vision Pro Vihaan at his robotics team's booth at the FTC World Championship Vihaan in his Eagle Scout uniform at his Court of Honor

About

I'm Vihaan, a high school student in Santa Clara, California, working on technology that helps people live more independently.

That work has taken me from captaining my FIRST Tech Challenge robotics team, to teaching robots to walk at the University of New Mexico, to making buildings more accessible with the University of Cambridge.

Away from the screen, I'm an Eagle Scout, a varsity volleyball player, co-captain of my school's mock trial team, and behind the counter at Pints of Joy, a local ice cream shop.

Publications

ROCA: A Dynamic Metaheuristic Framework for Route Optimization Using Context-Aware Ant Colony Systems

IJCCI / ECTA 2026

A route planner, modeled on how ant colonies find food, that turns a dispatcher's plain-language instructions into routes so emergency responders reach a scene faster. Tested on real Bay Area streets, it found 3.5% better routes, and it was shortlisted for the IJCCI 2026 Best Paper Award.

Accepted for publication in the proceedings of the 18th International Joint Conference on Computational Intelligence (IJCCI / ECTA 2026). The final authenticated version will be available online via Springer.

Multi Axis Flight Control Software for a Biomimetic Ornithopter in Confined Space Navigation

IEEE CCE 2026

BioFlap is a 50-gram drone that flies by flapping its wings like an insect, built to inspect tight spaces like pipes and bridges on a $150 budget. Over four generations I rebuilt its gearbox and wings and wrote its flight control software, which held it steady within 10 degrees across 15 flight tests.

BioFlap ornithopter from the front, wings spread

This work has been accepted for publication by the IEEE. Copyright may be transferred without notice, after which this version may no longer be accessible.

Experience

Research Intern · LC Lab, University of New Mexico

The lab's only high school researcher. I train four-legged and humanoid robots in more than 20 agile skills, from stair climbing to box jumps and handstands, build the reaching and grasping system for a Go2 robot dog with an arm, and am co-authoring a paper on moving these skills from simulation to real robots.

Unitree Go2 walking and turning
Research Collaborator · University of Cambridge, with Dr. Matteo Zallio

Built an AI system that links 72 international accessibility standards for mobility, vision, and hearing to the building codes of 31 countries, checking 1,350 of its own claims along the way, so homes and public spaces work for everyone. Papers under review.

University of Cambridge Vihaan with Dr. Matteo Zallio on the Stanford campus

The Aging Atlas

I founded The Aging Atlas to put older adults' own stories behind research on aging. I recruited four senior living communities, recorded 30 life-story interviews about independence, paired each with a loneliness survey, and published it all as an open dataset you can explore below.

Projects

FTC

2022 – now

Team captain and software lead. At the World Championship we placed second for best autonomous system and third for outreach, and we were twice named the best team in Northern California. I wrote the robot's self-correcting navigation, accurate to within 2 cm, and mentored 15 younger teams in programming.

FTC team with the Control Award Finalist plaque at the 2024 FIRST Championship

Eagle Scout project

Scouting America · 2026

ScrapStation, a modular organizer for scrap wood and metal in my old school's fabrication lab, used by about 240 students a year. I led 30+ volunteers from CAD to assembly, then shared the plans with Men's Sheds, workshops for older adults, and the design has since reached 33 of their woodshops in 24 countries.

Scouts assembling the cart outdoors on build day

Ping Pong Club – Vision Pro Mixed Reality Game

visionOS · 2025

A ping pong game you play in your own room with Apple Vision Pro. Working with a Google engineer, I built the hand tracking, the AI opponent, and fitness tracking; my update grew weekly players tenfold, and Apple's editors featured it as one of 5 visionOS apps picked from more than 4,200.

Vihaan with the Ping Pong Club team
Ping Pong Club on the App Store

Community

Mock Trial

Co-captain · 2023 – now

Co-captain of a 19-member team.

The full mock trial team with coaches

Key Club

Co-president · 2023 – now

Co-president of a 208-member chapter.

Work

Scooper and new-hire trainer · Pints of Joy, Sunnyvale

Serving customers in English, Gujarati, and Spanish. I wrote the shop's first onboarding guide, now standard for new hires.

Software Engineering Intern · AlteraSF

An AI hiring startup. I built a feature that explains to recruiters why each candidate ranks where they do, a bias audit for the hiring model, and the company's mobile app.

Awards

Activities