Pune, India

I solve differential equations for a living, and grammar for a hobby.

Mechanical engineer by degree, FEA consultant by trade, published author by accident, and a blogger with an unhealthy number of side projects nobody commissioned.

Illustrated portrait of Vinaay Patil at his desk, aviators on, holding a pencil over a blueprint with a neural-network doodle in the corner.
About

The short, honest version

I'm a mechanical engineer who fell in love with the Finite Element Method the way other people fall in love with people — completely, and slightly against my better judgment. An M.S. from the University of Texas at Arlington later, I came home to Pune and started Vaftsy, an engineering simulation practice, so I could keep solving other people's structural problems for a living instead of just my own.

Somewhere between pressure vessels and pin-fin heat sinks, I also wrote a textbook on Artificial Intelligence, because apparently one engineering obsession per lifetime wasn't going to cut it. These days I split my attention between client FEA reports, a blog that has never once stayed on topic, the Arsenal back four's baffling life choices, and finding excuses to go stand in front of glaciers in questionable knitwear.

"Narcissism is a cure for attention deficit disorder." — me, in my one moment of unfiltered honesty

I'm told this is either the most self-aware or least self-aware sentence a person can write. I've decided not to think about it too hard.

Currently claiming to be good at
Finite Element Analysis Pressure Vessel Design (ASME Sec VIII) Composite & Bio-Mechanics Modelling Explaining AI without a whiteboard Arsenal-related suffering Free-form sketching High-altitude sweater choices
M.S. Mechanical Engineering — UT Arlington B.E. Mechanical — University of Pune
What I Do

By day, I break things — on a computer, on purpose

Since 2007, Vaftsy has been the part of my life where the equations have to be right, because somewhere a bridge, a tank, or a robot arm is depending on it.

est. 2007

Vaftsy — Finite Element Analysis & Simulation

We take real engineering problems — pressure vessels, offshore and robotic structures, composites, even ligaments and dental implants — and turn them into equations, then solve those equations before anything expensive has the chance to fail in the real world.

  • Pressure vessel analysis to ASME Sec VIII Div 2
  • Static, dynamic & fatigue analysis of robotic and offshore structures
  • Coupled thermo-structural, composite, and bio-mechanical simulation
  • FEA training — for teams and universities alike
Visit Vaftsy CAE
"Prepare an engineering report in a manner that decades later, another engineer picking it up shouldn't have to hunt down your phone number to understand you did the right analysis." — Dr. Kent Lawrence, UT Arlington, a lesson I never unlearned
Books

I also wrote some books. On purpose, this time.

Book cover: First Steps in Artificial Intelligence by Vinaay Patil, illustrated as a hiker walking a mountain path past search-tree, neural-network, and autonomous-car waypoints toward a glowing circuit-board brain.
Non-Fiction · Engineering & AI

Long before AI became dinner-table conversation, I wrote a textbook explaining it in plain, syllabus-friendly English — Mathematical Game Theory, expert systems (with a full walkthrough of MYCIN), neural networks, and every algorithm backed by actual C and C++ code, not just slideware. It's used in engineering courses across Pune and Mumbai University, which is either flattering or a little terrifying depending on the exam season.

Book cover: First Steps in Python by Vinaay Patil, illustrated as a hiker walking a path shaped like a python snake made of code brackets, past variables, loops, and functions, toward a glowing lightbulb.
Also on the shelf

First Steps in Python

Same "start from zero, keep it simple" approach, aimed at anyone who'd rather get a loop behaving than debate machine consciousness.

Writings

The blog that refuses to pick a lane

I used to run separate blogs for football, memoir, and general nonsense. Eventually I admitted they were all the same blog wearing different hats, and merged them into one glorious, unsorted mess.

a work permanently in progress

I Diagress

One blog, three obsessions, zero editorial discipline: Arsenal match reactions written by someone who has clearly suffered enough, chapters of a slow-simmering memoir about growing up at Crescent High School, and everything else that didn't fit anywhere else — which, on this blog, is most things.

  • The football bit — Arsenal commentary, mostly therapeutic
  • The memoir bit — "Days Under the Crescent Sun," one chapter at a time
  • The everything-else bit — the gibberish the tagline promises
Read the gibberish
Illustrated desk scene for I Diagress: a notebook open to 'Days Under the Crescent Sun,' a football with an Arsenal crest, a passport, a sleepy dog, and a speech bubble of scrambled letters.
"Even the spelling is not right!!" — the blog's own tagline, and it's not wrong
Illustrated caped superhero calmly directing a swirling storm of Gantt charts, risk registers and change requests into neat labeled binders.

The PMI Files

A PMP study series at pmi.vinaaypatil.com, published under the pen name Captain Vyom — because apparently one origin story wasn't enough. Every topic gets its own comic strip and illustration, so stakeholder registers, risk matrices, and the entire PMBOK guide arrive as something closer to a graphic novel than a certification manual.

Report for duty at pmi.vinaaypatil.com
Travels

Field research, technically

An engineer needs load cases. I get mine from the Himalayas.

Say Hi

Get in touch, or just window shop

For engineering work, book queries, Arsenal condolences, or general nonsense — pick your door.

Email vinaay.patil@vinaaypatil.com

Yes, my email is just my own name at my own name. The narcissism section wasn't kidding.

Vaftsy CAE vaftsycae.com