Hands shaking, Nidhya Shivakumar (12) carefully presented her robot’s results to the judges, aware that she was only moments away from leading her robotics team to victory. But this was no ordinary win. After a year of relentless hard work, Nidhya and her all-girls team had advanced to the final round of the 2021 VEX VRC High School World Championships, and all their efforts were to culminate in this final round. As she calmed herself down, the judges confirmed her team’s results and proclaimed them champions. Shock and elation flooded her as she realized what they had accomplished.

Nidhya’s robotics journey began in first grade, when she was enthralled watching her brother compete. As she grew more advanced and tackled more complex challenges, she came to enjoy the problem-solving aspect of robotics most. 

“When you’re presented with a challenge, your first instinct is to say, ‘This is so hard. There’s no way we’re gonna be able to put metal together to address this challenge,’” Nidhya said. “Eventually, you think through each of the smaller tasks and build it all together into the final robot, and designing that is a lot of fun.”

Robotics teammate Claire Su (11) attested to Nidhya’s problem-solving ability, and the comfort she feels with Nidhya on the team. As the driver of the team, responsible for operating the robot during competition, Nidhya’s quick thinking is especially important. This was evident when her team required an understanding of advanced calculus to calibrate their GPS sensors. 

“Whenever we have an issue in the team, I feel really secure knowing that she’s there and that we can all work together to solve the problem,” Claire said. “[Nidhya’s] not scared of proposing ideas that are out there because she knows that if she just tries to execute, she’ll be able to deduce the problem, and she’ll be able to continue working on it until she solves it.”

Although Nidhya has always felt a natural passion for robotics, it was difficult to break into a male-dominated field. Even as she and her team notched success after success and rose through the ranks, other teams continued to underestimate her team’s ability. A critical aspect of robotics competitions is forging partnerships, but opponents constantly rejected her team’s propositions despite their clear talent. After winning the world championship, Nidhya was disappointed the sentiment persisted. 

“It was pretty heartbreaking for me,” she said. “When I was younger I thought, ‘Maybe if we just win the next level of competition, then they wouldn’t say that about us.’ But then we won the highest level of competition, and they [continued]. I really wanted to make sure that no one else would have to feel that way.”  

Nidhya addressed the hurdles women face in robotics by organizing several Girl Powered workshops, which offer girls in middle and high school a safe space to explore robotics at the introductory level. She also founded Boost Robotics, a program which exposes underrepresented groups to robotics and supports them throughout their journeys and has impacted students from as far as Latin America and Switzerland. Whether she’s working with nonprofits or at a tournament, Nidhya places a strong emphasis on teaching and the importance of sharing her knowledge.

“I pride myself on sharing [our team’s] ideas and designs with other members of the robotics community,” Nidhya said. “I could be sharing a design with someone, and then the next day we would have to go and compete against them. It’s very important because it not only helps other people, but it also helps you learn by trying to explain your ideas to other people.”

Upper school computer science teacher Anu Datar commended Nidhya’s desire to give back to her community and help others. Datar especially noted how these talents contribute to the classroom.  

“Nidhya has the ability to motivate people,” Datar said. “She’s very passionate, very knowledgeable, and she’s willing to share that knowledge with everyone. In a classroom environment, that facilitates easy dialogue, where discussion becomes much more interesting because I can clearly see that she wants to learn and I can share more.”

Nidhya is willing not only to share but also to listen, inside and outside of the classroom. Longtime friend Amruta Dharmapurikar (12) reflected on how this quality enhances Nidhya’s relationships with others. 

“What I value the most about our friendship is just having somebody that I can talk to,” Amruta said. “[Nidhya’s] always ready to hear my thoughts or contribute her own thoughts and just discuss anything. I feel very free to be myself around her.”

In the future, Nidhya hopes to take her talents to an organization like NASA, where she can help design for and tackle space-related initiatives. She remembers waking up at 3 a.m. to watch space launches, and she is especially enthralled with the intricacy of space exploration. 

“The different mechanisms behind what it takes to have a rocket launch are all really interesting,” Nidhya said. “How everything has to go right for the rocket to even lift off the ground in the first place, much less execute that complex task in space, is just mind blowing to me.”