RTSystemDesign

A laser-spectroscopy client needed custom electronics to integrate and compare two fast light-detector signals over a brief window after each laser pulse and send an immediate trigger decision to its equipment. The deadline was tight—with part of our fee tied to hitting it—and we did not have FPGA signal-processing expertise in-house.

I walked UC San Diego’s engineering buildings to recruit an FPGA specialist, designed the interface electronics and enclosure around off-the-shelf high-speed boards, and led sourcing, bench testing, and integration—delivering the complete package on schedule in September 2013 with operator software and a quick-start guide.

For a cleanroom client, I brought on a mechanical engineer to develop filter-fan hardware and integrated four fan units and environmental sensors into a single LabVIEW control screen—ensuring the fans kept running safely at their setpoints even if the control PC restarted or disconnected.

Follow-on proposals mapped out multi-room installations with independent alarm limits, timestamped histories, and remote-access options, alongside a separate modular wireless environmental-sensor concept our team designed in 2014.

Through Ingenovations, our in-house 3D-printing service covered by The Atlantic in 2013, I worked directly with customers to turn rough ideas into manufacturable CAD—resolving geometry, material, and wall-thickness constraints before a file ever went to a printer.

Seeing customers ask for parts that belonged on CNC mills rather than plastic printers also sparked RapidRealities, the separate company I co-founded to deliver rapid quotes from uploaded 3D files and match jobs with open machine-shop capacity.