Team lead of SYNTAX TERMINATOR — top 12 of more than 250 teams at GDSC DevJams 2024, with a voice-controlled home system built inside the window.
DevJams is the flagship hackathon of Google Developer Student Clubs at VIT, and it draws the whole campus. More than 250 teams entered the 2024 edition, and SYNTAX TERMINATOR finished in the top twelve of them.
Divyakush Punjabi led team SYNTAX TERMINATOR, four people, from brainstorming through build to the final pitch.
What went in was a voice-controlled home automation system with no command grammar at all. The Google Gemini API resolves intent from open natural language, Python maps that intent onto actions, and those actions drive Arduino-controlled devices directly — with the Spotify API wired in alongside the hardware so playback is addressable by the same voice path rather than living in a separate app.
Removing the fixed vocabulary is the whole point. A request works because it means something, not because it happened to be worded the way the system expects, which is what makes most voice control in the home feel brittle.
Building it to a hackathon deadline set the scope. Everything that shipped had to work end to end on a table in front of a judge, which is a stricter test than a green build.
Divyakush Punjabi