Sri Nikhil Bandi

About

I'm an Electrical and Computer Engineering student at Penn State with a passion for building things at the intersection of hardware and software. I enjoy working on embedded systems, robotics, computer vision, and full-stack projects. I'm always looking for opportunities to build things that matter.

Projects

Fortnite Reinforcement Learning Agent

Python · PyTorch · YOLOv8 · PPO · Gymnasium

Built a reinforcement learning agent that learns to autonomously eliminate guards using only real-time vision and hardware-level input control, without game memory or APIs. Trained an Actor Critic network with Proximal Policy Optimization on a minimal five-value observation space derived from a custom YOLOv8 detector, using a dense reward structure to shape detection, approach, aim, and shot accuracy.

FoodBridge

Python · XGBoost · Scikit-Learn · Pandas

Engineered an AI-driven "Intelligence Layer" to reduce food waste in university dining halls by predicting consumer demand. Developed a high-performance forecasting model using the XGBoost gradient-boosting algorithm, integrating historical dining data and external variables to optimize inventory procurement and minimize operational surplus.

Pathfinding RL Algorithm

Python · PyTorch · Reinforcement Learning

Developed a pathfinder where a deep Q-network learns to navigate a 2D grid and repeatedly reach a goal while avoiding walls. The agent observes local danger, direction, and goal position, and improves over thousands of episodes, visualized with Pygame and tracked with live training plots.

Reapo-AI

Python · Next.js · Supabase · GitHub API · LLMs

Hackathon project: Developed an "Intelligence Layer" for large-scale codebases using vector embeddings and semantic search. The system indexes entire GitHub organizations, allowing AI agents to perform cross-repository feature analysis, automated PR reviews, and complex refactors with context.

PDF Analyzer

Python · Flask · Google TTS · JavaScript

Developed a full-stack web application that transforms static PDF documents into high-quality audio files. Engineered a processing pipeline using PyPDF2 for page-specific text extraction and integrated Google TTS for natural language synthesis, featuring a responsive UI with real-time conversion controls.

Telugu Optical Character Recognition

Python · Flask · Tesseract OCR · Docker

Engineered a translation engine that extracts Telugu script from images using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and translates it into English via the Google Translate API. Implemented a robust backend with automated unit testing and containerized the entire application using Docker to ensure seamless deployment and environment consistency.

Experience

2025 – Present Research

Undergraduate Researcher

Penn State Laboratory for Perception, Action, and Cognition (LPAC)

Developing a multi-modal Transformer for high-fidelity keypose classification and human gait analysis. I focus on automating the synchronization of multi-modal datasets to streamline model training, while researching Active Vision Systems to bridge the gap between computer vision algorithms and robotic actuators in intelligent environments.

2025-2026 Founder

Co-Founder & Machine Learning Engineer

Foodbridge - Nittany AI Alliance

1st Place Winner – Nittany AI Shark Tank. Spearheaded a strategic partnership with Penn State Central Procurement to ingest proprietary inventory data for demand forecasting. Developed an "Intelligence Layer" using XGBoost to optimize institutional supply chains and reduce food waste, successfully pitching the MVP to a panel of industry experts to secure top honors and venture validation.

2025 – Present Leadership

Projects Committee

IEEE Penn State Student Chapter

Directed technical workshops on Edge AI and Embedded Systems, guiding 150+ students on STM32 microcontrollers. Owned the end-to-end hardware-software lifecycle, optimizing C-code and signal processing to bridge the gap between classroom theory and real-time deployment.

Contact

Email nivasbandi1234@gmail.com GitHub github.com/nikbandi LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/sri-nikhil-bandi