Null Set Labs

A youth-led research lab building open tools across robotics, food systems and access, and related research.

First principles · Open tools · Public good

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Active Research

What the lab is working on.

VEX Visualizer · 866 teams at Worlds 2026
Pantry Dashboard · public for pilots
LEAF-Link · concept in preparation
Robotics

Open tools and statistical research for competition robotics, plus space-systems concepts that sit at the edge of robotics and biology.

VEX Visualizer VEX Research LEAF-Link Override
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Food Systems and Access

Research and tools for nutritional quality, community food systems, and the economics of food access.

NutriScan Community Food Bank Efficiency
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Why this work

Where the work is showing up.

In competition robotics
866 teams reading their season.

The VEX Visualizer indexed every high-school team at Worlds 2026. Coaches, programmers, and analysts read the data behind their division during the event, and the methodology stays open for any team to check or extend.

In food access
Patterns that went unread.

Decisions about hunger relief often lean on intuition more than data. The Pantry Dashboard turns a food bank's own wide, sparse spreadsheets into patterns staff can act on, and it is in community pilot use now.

At the edge of fields
Questions taking shape.

Earlier-stage work, like LEAF-Link's lunar plant-biology framing, develops a research question toward faculty collaboration. New areas open only when the work exists to justify them.

About

A small lab, grounded in published methods.

Null Set Labs is a youth-led research lab. The lab is computational and analytical rather than a wet bench. Its work lives in open-source tools, statistical analysis, and research developed toward publication.

Active research at the lab spans two areas:

  • Robotics. Open-source tools and statistical research for the VEX competition ecosystem, including the live VEX Visualizer dashboard used at Worlds 2026, and concept work on space-systems robotics under the Artemis track.
  • Food Systems and Access. Research and tools spanning nutritional quality classification, community food bank operations, and economic disparities in food access. Public deliverables include the Pantry Dashboard.
How the lab works
  • Statistics serves the question. It runs through both research areas rather than living as a separate one, and is shaped by what each project actually needs to answer.
  • Small and deliberate. New research areas appear only when work exists to justify them.
  • Grounded in published methods. The lab borrows from established literature before inventing, and cites the work it builds on.
  • Open by default. Tools are released with their methodology visible. Research is co-authored with the faculty it is built with.
About Arjun

Arjun Mohanan is a high-school student and the founder of Null Set Labs. He builds tools when he wants to understand a system more deeply, and he collaborates with university faculty to take that work toward publication. His interests sit at the intersection of mathematics, robotics, and applied data science.