Rich Reel
Updated 2022 Jun 2
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| Photo by Al Loup |
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Photo by Marc Haberstroh
Photo by Marion Redd
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Square Dance Caller
I call weekly for 3 area square dance clubs, teaching classes from beginner thru A2.
More about square dancing below.
Calling schedule: Rich Reel's Calling Schedule (calendar)
Website
ALL8.COM
- Square Dance Calling Notes,
and host to several international square dance email discussion lists: sd-callers, challenge-sd, lgcwsd, gca
(please let me know if you'd like to join).
I host these websites:
westernstardancers.org
scvsda.org
reelers.org
oaktown8s.org
bayareadancecalendar.org
edreel.com
This popular 'app' brings a lot of traffic to ALL8.com: Tap for BPM Beats Per Minute
Search "tap bpm".
"View Source" to see how I did it.
Engineer
I'm a multi-disciplinary product design engineer and pretty good at making things.
Hobbies have overlapped with career interests my entire life.
While I work as a full-time employee, I'm completely independent owning significant capital equipment and space to work, ideal for an early startup.
I'm social, outgoing and love to help others learn, grow, gain experience and be successful.
I can frustrate some managers that wish to steer me toward high-value tasks;
balance with low-level tasks is actually essential to my health and happiness.
I've been with Genapsys since 2011.
We launched our first product:
GS111 DNA Sequencer and I continue to innovate for new products.
I'm responsible for electronics and firmware, and increasingly mechanical design including at the system level as well as rapid prototyping.
Before Genapsys I was with Applied Biosystems
now ThermoFisher Scientific for 21 years.
I've worked on a wide array of projects supporting scientists and engineers with many in the past 30 years in some way connected to DNA sequencing.
One particularly successful project was the (now obsolete) ABI PRISM® 3700 Genetic Analyzer
which significantly sped up sequencing the first human genome in the very early 2000's.
In addition to building the first proof-of-concept unit, I designed the final instrument's detector,
wrote firmware for instrument control, and had a hand in the detector design of its successor,
the 3730.
I do two basic types of work in R&D...
- Instrument design/development (most recently)
- Fast prototyping to support research scientists (most of my career)
"Ph.D. scientists tell me what they want; I get it for them."
I prefer a smaller team with others in very different disciplines.
With a minimum of discussion, I quickly take analytical instruments from concept to prototype, and sometimes to production.
Education
Continuing education is a passion taking 30% or so of my time including numerous special classes, seminars, good ol' paper books
and all manner of on-line resources, usually in parallel.
I regularly attend local trade shows in optics, electronics, embedded, semiconductor, plastics, medical device and machine tool.
I've been focused on practical technology for a long time to be ready ahead of anticipated need.
I believe I have ADHD.
Too much of my early education wasn't right for my learning style,
a classic late bloomer.
The internet has profoundly accelerated my learning process.
With so many different ways of learning available that work now, I'm rapidly 'catching up'.
Organizations
Work History
| 2011-Present |
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Genapsys |
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Principal Engineer (recently promoted) |
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Instrument R&D: DNA sequencing and sample prep product development |
| 1989-2010 |
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Life Technologies / Applied Biosystems |
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Sr Staff Engineer Electrical |
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Instrument R&D: HPLC,
CE, Carbohydrates, DNA sequencing and sample prep |
| 1988-1989 |
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Ultrasonic Systems Inc |
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Engineer |
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R&D, manufacturing, test, field service |
| 1987-1988 |
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Mimir Instruments |
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Electronic Engineer |
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Switching power supply and UV measurement instrument design |
| 1986-1987 |
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Modern Office Machines |
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Technician |
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Commercial copy machine field service |
| 1986-1987 |
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Gabe Lozada |
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Service, Installer |
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Vending machine repair, RO water dispenser installation |
| 1984-1985 |
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The Ohio State University |
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(unpaid) |
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Semiconductor processing equipment repair/tune |
| 1980-1985 |
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Self Employed |
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Sales, Service |
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Pinball machine and jukebox sales and service |
Skills
Perhaps with the exception of optics, most everything below is active, current and fast.
My engineering lab and machine shop supports doing much of this at home.
(See Prototype Shop below.)
- Systems Engineer - Innovator with 20+ years experience with key roles on high-profile projects.
Can conceive, design, build, test and deliver complete working systems faster than many engineering teams.
Conservative yet ambitious with a good percentage of designs working the first time.
Can quickly troubleshoot system-wide problems and communicate solutions to a wide audience from highly technical to completely non-technical.
I learn quickly and understand deeply to solve tough problems others struggle with.
Self-driven. Customer focused.
I thrive on ambitious projects with a moving goalpost.
I prefer designs that can adapt to change and strive to deliver second-generation caliber the first time.
- Optics - 10 years of experience and patents - Successful designs include
diffraction limited multi-laser piezo-scanning confocal single molecule fluorescence detection breadboards,
FCS
and fast-frame-rate EMCCD
imaging with TIRF
or epi illumination, high-sensitivity absorbance and fluorescence detection systems (and one doing both simultaneously),
detectors for CE,
LC and
micro-fluidic systems, and a 3D fluorescent plume imager for optimizing capillary tip shape in a sheath flow
electrophoresis application.
Decent experience in very high NA imaging and non-imaging optics, complex multi-component aberration
correction, planer/concave/reflective/transmission
gratings and aspheric lenses and mirrors.
- Mechanical - 20+ years of experience - Recently promoted to Principal level largely from mechanical contributions.
Solidworks since 2009, AutoCAD since 1990 - Designs in robotics, fluidics, micro fabrication, vacuum, thermal control and optical mechanics.
I used an electronic CAD tool to route a pneumatic/fluidic manifold central to Genapsys' first-generation instrument; it looks like a 2-layer circuit board.
30+ years of making functioning prototypes allows me to bring manufacturing insight into my designs.
Exposure to GD&T.
- Electronics - 40+ years deep experience starting at age 9. First design from concepts at age 13.
I have a cool 'mechanical' way to visualize the dynamics of complex networks of electronic components that allows me to innovate entirely new circuit topologies.
Over 10 years I've done nearly all of Genapsys' electronics (outside our sensor chip) including concept, system design, specifications, circuit design and PCB layout for all boards in all products.
I was intimately involved in the design, and significantly contributed to the development, of the on-chip circuit at the core of Genapsys' DNA sense technology.
Complete analog/digital/uC design.
Switching power supply and feedback control expert.
Dozens of PCB layouts: up to 10 layers in Altium Designer and to 6 layers in various free layout tools.
I've routed USB3, Gigabit Ethernet, HDMI and DisplayPort in Altium Designer and passed EMC the first time.
Extensive libraries with full color high-detail 3D mechanical models - many made from scratch in Solidworks.
Assembly, test (and test software - see below), blazing fast component level troubleshooting and
SMD rework at the tiniest scale (under magnification) means I won't need a technician.
100% RoHS since 2009.
Worked with a number of PCB fab and assembly vendors and one layout design service firm.
I have a professional quality, fully equipped, ESD-safe
SMD
workstation at home with a base set of mid-level test equipment including EMC testing.
I've made simple 2 layer photo etched PCBs in a day from design files (CNC drill, custom routed shape, hand soldered vias).
Successful designs include low noise and drift analog sensor/audio/video signal path,
scientific grade CCD interface,
complete switching power supplies from mW to KW, and to 30KV, from discrete components as well as today's integrated ICs,
with and without custom magnetics.
Exposure to SoC/FPGA/CPLD
and IC AMS (Analog Mixed Signal) design.
I've done two PC builds recently including one optimized for CAD (2018 for work) and another for CAD and
ML (2016 for home).
Though a HAM - KA8VIF - I've had no projects in RF nor
using FPGA as I've yet to encounter a requirement exceeding what I can do with a microcontroller and firmware.
- Firmware / Embedded - 40+ years of near continuous experience since 1978 - Hard real-time,
Bare metal from scratch -
Assembly
with extensive experience on PIC16,
68332
and 8051.
I coded in machine code (source code is numbers) on 6800 and 68701 before and through high school.
I've used C and some C++ on many processors, and lately also on Arduino (UNO, Nano) including for a demanding time-critical application.
I regularly write dense and compact low-level code hand-optimized and easy to verify for guaranteed performance.
Projects included high performance control algorithms, human/computer interface, script engine, real-time instrument control, multitasking,
multi-system coordination, multi-servo loop, wide variety of motor drive,
PID temperature/pressure/motion control,
communication protocol, data collection, data processing and efficient
DSP algorithms.
Compared to others, this is probably my strongest area.
I make processors with next to no resources do amazing things with rock-solid reliability.
Brief exposure to ADI Blackfin and
NVIDIA Tegra2 / Windows CE.
Learning STM32 and RP2040.
- Software - 20+ years of experience - LabVIEW,
some C, C++ and now Python (including Jupyter Notebook)
- Soft real-time instrument control from PC with highly visual and easy-to-use script engine,
graphical user interface, complex CCD camera control (via FPGA
low level commands), data analysis, some 2D and 3D image processing,
audio processing algorithms and a range of web, DOS and other utilities.
I wrote two standalone simulators completely from scratch in a few weeks: 2D electric field, single molecule kinetics.
Still adding to an audio editor application started in 2003 that has some highly advanced features.
My forte is quickly building specialized in-house software tools, with and without accompanying hardware,
to enable a technical team to understand problems and find solutions.
Through the Raspberry Pi,
actively and intensely learning
Python,
Linux
and have begun application development using Tk
and Qt.
Some experience in networking, Java, Javascript, Perl, PHP and Bash shell programming.
Genapsys originally hired me as a LabVIEW
programmer to write their instrument control software.
I supported Genapsys as the sole developer for well over a year, writing and maintaining a codebase that's still widely used for instrument control,
data collection and test as well as special research not supported by the company's main-line software.
With "extra effort" I rewrote and condensed the various LabVIEW applications into a single application that
supports all products and a variety of R&D projects by loading a matching configuration file.
The configuration file is easily created within the application itself and saves significant software development time targeting new applications.
If needs aren't too crazy, I typically provide UI and script-based control and data collection (test) software for your new project "for free",
i.e. with no extra resource and no hit to the schedule on top of a heavy workload.
I maintain my own personal licensed copies of Solidworks*, Altium Designer*, LabVIEW and AutoCAD (* = subscription active)
for work and home projects.
Patents
Work a long time in an industry and one tends to accumulate some patents.
Patents:
7,477,381
7,139,074
6,927,852
6,921,908
6,690,467
Key Inventor:
8,446,588
8,102,529
7,709,808
7,611,614
7,483,136
7,430,048
7,177,023
7,014,744
Team Patents:
11,155,865
11,021,748
10,494,672
10,450,604
10,266,892
10,260,095
9,926,596
9,285,297
9,274,077
9,152,150
9,194,772
8,384,899
8,384,898
8,361,807
8,169,610
7,978,326
7,486,396
7,468,793
7,428,047
7,407,798
7,280,207
7,265,833
7,235,163
7,112,266
6,856,390
6,797,139
6,596,140
5,384,024
(Patent numbers link to freepatentsonline.com)
Work Ethic
Loving work, balancing tasks and feeling a sense of forward progress has allowed me to stay sustainably
close to 100% productivity with little need of a break.
Mixing different things at different times effectively gives me a break from the others and it actually works like that.
My secret is dividing time equally between 'thinking', 'doing', 'education' and 'infrastructure'
without feeling guilty for working "only" 1/4 of the time.
This allows time to be productive, do the right things, stay current, accumulate new skills and research,
purchase, install and maintain strategic capital equipment to greatly expand what can be done quickly.
Working for a company with interesting problems to solve helps too!
I believe accomplishment is fundamentally correlated with organization.
When things are set up with everything needed close by, easy to find and easy to use, doing many things becomes easy.
I hate cleaning and organizing but being organized is critical to sustained productivity with a large accumulation of legacy projects to support.
Prototype Shop
I maintain private prototype workshops in Hayward and Brisbane with significant additional equipment and assets at Genapsys.
Everything is paid for and maintained in excellent working condition.
Key equipment:
Also: a second manual milling machine, 2HP 21" metal band saw,
Burr-King belt grinder (which I love!),
small sinker EDM (eats broken taps), CO2 "snow" cleaning and deburring (-80C), 2KW 28KHz ultrasonic welder, diamond grinder,
metal casting (induction, hot pot, furnace), basic wood-working, a full complement of high-quality tooling, inspection and much more.
I keep common materials in stock for rapid turnaround.
My home shop is our company's model shop.
While the team has been careful not to weigh me down too much as we grow, I've been able to meet the everyday needs for special parts and modifications for others across multiple projects on-the-side,
typically overnight, while maintaining a full workload - in addition to parts I make for my own deliverables.
Almost ready:
- Cold and aluminum TIG welding: ANDELI TIG-250PL
- Injection Molding: Medium Machinery Model 1, 2oz, 12ton (plunger, no screw)
- CNC Abrasive Waterjet Cutter: Wazer from Kickstarter
- 4KW induction metal casting with inert gas and vacuum assist
- Resin 3D Printer: Anycubic Photon with path to high-detail metal casting
Interesting parts over the years include complex flexures, highly polished and fully functional acrylic aspheric lenses and aluminum aspheric mirrors,
thermally bonded pneumatically-actuated microfluidic lab-on-a-chip consumables w 100um channels
(machined COC +
TPE),
holes in glass as small as 75um (0.003") diameter 1mm (0.040") deep,
numerous sophisticated fluidic and pneumatic manifolds (some used in production),
highly specialized (fully custom) fluidic rotary valves, intricate laser-cut seals
(including cleaning them), gears and machined insulating firebrick.
All machines are set up with high magnification.
Without correction my eyesight is marginal, but with aids, I can confidently "eyeball" within +/-10um (+/- .0005")
and have made whole parts smaller than a millimeter.
Square Dancing
I started dancing with Foggy City Dancers in 1995 as a new year's resolution.
I dance at these local clubs.
Square Dance Calling
I call and teach for Ranchero Squares,
Western Star Dancers (Facebook page) and
my new club Swinging 21'ers (Facebook page).
I called for El Camino Reelers until they changed their dance night.
Calling Bio
I first picked up a mic at the GCA caller school
at the 1996 IAGSDC Convention in San Francisco.
I didn't do much with calling the first couple years while I focused on Challenge dancing.
My first calling was filling in at a C3 workshop (tape group) with thanks to Pete Herman.
My first real calling was a tip a week of Mainstream at Santa Cruz Squares (currently on hiatus)
with thanks to Neil Heather.
My Santa Cruz Squares tip became a Plus teach tip and I graduated my first dancers 6 months later.
I began calling club nights from the Callerlab Mainstream and Plus program for local clubs August 1998 including
Diablo Dancers (my very first "club night"),
Foggy City Dancers, and
Santa Cruz Squares (as substitute caller).
Diablo Dancers was the most supportive of my calling in the critical first years.
I graduated my second bunch of Diablo Dancers Plus dancers April 2000.
October 2003 I accepted an unexpected offer to teach Western Star Dancers'
beginner class which is the moment I say I became a "real caller" calling regularly.
Since then I've been calling 3 nights a week on average with a variety of additional
engagements including dances, club nights, review tips, demo tips, picnics, parades, and even
while on tour in China.
Since my first Advanced class in 2006, with loving support from El Camino Reelers,
I called a tip or so per week of Advanced until joining Ranchero Squares as club caller in Apr 2018.
2009 marked some important 'firsts':
Me and Calling
Square dance calling is a unique blend of music, kinetics, puzzle solving, teaching, showmanship and of course social skills.
I primarily 'sight call', which is making up choreography on the fly from a menu of calls the dancers know then observing the dancers to
resolve the square allowing true connection between caller and dancers.
As square dancing doesn't so-much reward in dollars (but does reward!),
I'm thankful I have a good job that allows me to enjoy it without having to make a living at it.
I have no plans to make calling any more than a hobby, albeit a serious one.
My joy is teaching, both dancers and callers.
When I sense interest, I organize a
Newer Caller Workshop for local budding talent.
Calling is just one aspect of square dancing that has been an important catalyst for my own personal growth and
development, in more ways, and for far longer than I ever imagined.
Random videos of my calling (YouTube)
Had a memorable 50th birthday party with live band and caller Darren Gallina.
YouTube: Square Dancing at Rich Reel's 50th Birthday Party
ALL8.com Web Site
ALL8.com was started as a place to keep my square dance calling notes.
Instead of writing on scraps of paper, I write it here.
I invite you to discover my 'secrets'.
I hand-code all HTML using Notepad and/or Textpad for the PC
to ensure pages are light-weight and work internationally.
Other Interests
- Music editing, mastering, composition and recording
- CW dancing and some ballroom (East/West Coast Swing) ... getting rusty lately
- Wood working / home improvement
- Education - any and all subjects, with interests broadening every year
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"Never seek for love.
Those that seek for love only manifest their own loneliness.
Only the loving discover love and they never have to look for it."
D. H. Lawrence |
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Please let me know what you think about www.ALL8.com and
of course, ask any question at all.
call me 415-990-6751, see Richard Reel on Facebook