2004Story
From robot dreams to a life of building.
I arrived in Plymouth at 19 with almost no money, barely any English, and a stubborn dream: to work with robots. Before software there was restart, labour, study, and a persistent pull toward things that have to work in the physical world.
Plymouth, iCub, ESA, NVIDIA, TEDx, Tao.
Objects
Five objects that hold the line.
Construction, robotics, NVIDIA, the thesis, and Tao keep the story physical.
2004
2009-2014iCub in the lab
2012NVIDIA badge
2014Bound thesis
NowTao from above
Origin
Before software, the work was already physical.
As a child, I took household devices apart because I wanted to understand what made them work. As a young builder, I learned the practical truth: weight, tools, weather, and structure decide whether an idea holds.
Timeline
Constraint to craft.
From manual work to robotics, cameras, spatial systems, and Tao, the same pattern repeats: learn the constraint, build, test, adjust.
Arriving in the UK with almost nothing
A hard restart in Plymouth: little English, little money, manual work, and the first real test of whether a dream could survive real conditions.
The first days were cold, confusing, and often humiliating: work when it was available, study when there was energy left, and a private refusal to let the dream shrink to fit the circumstances.
Plymouth began with uncertainty before it became study, robotics, and home.
Night shifts, daytime computing, and astronomy
Working full-time nights while studying BSc Computing full-time during the day, with astrophotography and distance-learning astronomy running in parallel.
Revell Research Systems Prize
The Plymouth work-study period ended with a First-Class BSc and the 2008 Revell Research Systems Prize as top final-year BSc Computing student. It marked the transition from survival and study into iCub, ESA rover work, and the PhD.
Astronomy, attention, and observation
Alongside engineering, astronomy trained patience, optics, timing, and careful attention: telescope alignment, planetary images, public observing nights, and the discipline of letting the sky correct the idea.
NVIDIA HQ and the CUDA robotics period
The Plymouth iCub and GPU work reached NVIDIA through an invited Santa Clara HQ presentation, a CUDA Spotlight feature, GTC material, an SC11 keynote mention, and the later Jensen Huang photograph.
PhD: GPU Computing for Cognitive Robotics
The dream became technical: iCub humanoid learning, action and language, neural networks, vision, and GPU acceleration to make larger experiments practical.
From research to applied vision and spatial systems
The same question moved from robots into applied camera work, edge devices, synthetic worlds, multi-camera calibration, and perception outside the lab.
Spatial systems and Tao
The line now runs through spatial intelligence and Tao: shared coordinates, physical sites, water, paths, gardens, structures, repair, and daily care.
Tao became necessary because some things cannot stay abstract forever. After years of cameras, robots, code, and deadlines, I wanted a place where systems had to answer to weather, soil, water, fatigue, and the ordinary act of returning the next day.
Go to Project TaoFrom the old notebook
Three preserved notes in the voice of the time.
The main story is edited, but the older writing keeps some of the original texture: arrival, ambition, NVIDIA, and TEDx as they felt then.
Bio
Early public profile of Plymouth, study, astronomy, robotics, ESA, and NVIDIA.
Open noteMoving to California
The California research transition preserved from the earlier site.
Open noteMy TEDx Experience
The public talk seen from inside the moment, not rewritten years later.
Open noteLegacy Writing
The wider old notebook remains searchable and openable.
Open archive
TEDx
TEDx put the route into one room.
The public talk gathered the route from Plymouth to robotics, GPU computing, gratitude, and the dream of building intelligent machines.
Watch the TEDx talkPhysical continuity
The builder habit was literal.
The early construction photographs sit beside the later engineering because the same lesson kept returning: structure has to meet weight, weather, tools, and time.
Technical root
Learning had to become embodied.
The iCub work mattered because it connected perception to action, language, timing, and body constraints. Tao answers to a different body: terrain, water, heat, paths, planting, repair, and repeated use.
Open the workLegacy
For the people who made the work possible.
This archive is also a record of help: family, teachers, supervisors, collaborators, friends, colleagues, and the people who gave me chances when the path was not obvious. I want future readers to understand the work as a life, not just as a CV.