Aarsh Mittal

CS + Philosophy Undergraduate โ€ข University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Aarsh Mittal

Hey! I'm Aarsh, nice to meet you. As with any FIRST Tech Challenge alum, I love intelligent robotics, specifically learning-based robot control and making learned behaviors work reliably in the real world. I recently completed a Robotics Internship at Lightberry working on humanoid locomotion, and now that I'm back at school, I'm continuing to explore these problems while co-chairing SIGRobotics. Outside of robotics, I enjoy building full-stack tools and infrastructure for the teams and labs I work with.

News

  • [08/2026]: Completed my robotics internship at Lightberry. Grateful for everything I learned and for everyone I got to work with.
  • [07/2026]: Delos debuted at the 2026 American Solar Challenge!
  • [07/2026]: Attended YC Startup School and met some incredible people.
  • [05/2026]: Became a NEUP-DOE REU Fellow with the Nuclear Measurement Laboratory. Thank you to Professor Di Fulvio for the opportunity!
  • [05/2026]: Became co-chair of SIGRobotics. Grateful to everyone who supported me!
  • [04/2026]: Started my robotics internship at Lightberry.
  • [04/2026]: CRAFT was accepted to RSS 2026.
  • [03/2026]: Won Best Deployed on Aedify at HackIllinois 2026.
  • [02/2026]: Joined the Nuclear Measurement Laboratory, working with Dr. Fang and Professor Di Fulvio on machine learning for gamma spectroscopy.
  • [01/2026]: Became a Tech Engineer at MechSE MakerWorks, where I also deployed a custom volunteer management system.
  • [12/2025]: The Earth Rover platform was open-sourced with Hugging Face and FrodoBots. It was amazing working with everyone involved!
  • [11/2025]: Became a lab monitor at ECE OpenLab.
  • [10/2025]: Won 1st place at the Seeed Studio ร— NVIDIA Robotics ร— Hugging Face Embodied AI Hackathon.
  • [09/2025]: Became a makerspace volunteer at MechSE MakerWorks.
  • [08/2025]: Joined Illini Solar Car as a software developer.
  • [07/2025]: Placed top 6 worldwide at the International Logic Olympiad.

Scroll for more โ†“

Selected Work

Model Behavior

Built for HackIllinois 2026, where the project won Best Deployed on the Aedify track.

Embodied AI Hackathon Project

Built for the Seeed Studio ร— NVIDIA Robotics ร— Hugging Face Embodied AI Hackathon, where our project placed 1st.

Earth Rover

Contributed to open-sourcing the Earth Rover platform, developed in collaboration with Hugging Face and FrodoBots.

More work coming soon as current projects and research become public.

Selected Experience

Summer 2026
Robotics Intern Lightberry

Humanoid locomotion, reinforcement learning, simulation, and learning-based robot control.

2026 โ€“ Present
Research Assistant Rodriguez-Lopez Laboratory, UIUC

Computer vision and closed-loop automation for electrochemical experimentation.

2026 โ€“ Present
NEUP-DOE REU Fellow Nuclear Measurement Laboratory, UIUC

Machine learning for gamma spectroscopy and radiation measurement analysis.

2025 โ€“ Present
Co-Chair / Robot Arms Team Lead SIGRobotics

Bimanual manipulation, robot teleoperation, perception, and robotics education.

Papers I've Read

A running collection of papers I've read across robotics, machine learning, reinforcement learning, computer vision, and related areas, with notes on selected papers.

Browse reading list and notes โ†’

Education

2025 โ€“ 2028
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

B.S. Computer Science + Philosophy
Minors in Data Science and Statistics

Miscellaneous

Outside of robotics and coursework, I enjoy playing soccer, dabbling in electrical and mechanical engineering, and adding far too many YouTube videos to my Watch Later playlist.