Bruce Schena | Electromechanical Product Design
Design of complex electro-mechanical products requiring a comprehensive systems viewpoint and multi-disciplinary skills
Welcome to the web-home of Bruce Schena, electromechanical engineering & product design consultant located in the San Francisco Bay Area. I work primarily in the area of “smart” consumer products, robotic systems, haptics, and machine design. These products typically use cutting edge technologies, design methodologies (e.g. concurrent design, rapid prototyping), new materials, new manufacturing methods, integrated industrial design, sophisticated electronics & control, and teams of highly motivated smart people. In many cases, substantial strategic Intellectual Property (IP) has been developed and protected via US and international patents - I am currently named as inventor or co-inventor on 56 issued US patents, with over 120 additional issued or pending worldwide.
Very often, these products are “first of its kind” market entries enabled by new technologies being commercialized for the first time. In contrast to the more predictable “evolutionary” design, I tend to gravitate toward developments involving technology transfer from successful R&D efforts into the commercial marketplace. Having extensive experience in both technology R&D and front-line, high-volume product design gives me a unique appreciation for the difficulty and opportunity of this exciting transition process. I have particpated in these efforts as an individual technical contributor, engineering team leader, entrepreneur, and senior management - in some cases all of them concurrently. I have also participated in the classic "garage-to-IPO" Silicon Valley startup experience, been corporate spokesperson to press and analyst communities, and have served as a Board Member for a publicly-traded company (NASDAQ: IMMR) having a market captilization (1999-2000) of over a Billion dollars. That said, my first love is engineering design -- creating "new things that wiggle" in particular.
Some of my "mission critical" project have included:
- Systems and components for minimally invasive robotic surgery
- Disposable medical instruments
- Space telerobotics (terrestrial testbeds)
- Haptically-enabled MIS surgical simulators
- Nuclear plant decommissioning robot prototype
- Space Shuttle flight experiment hardware
- Force-feedback joysticks, wheels, & gamepads for PC and gaming consoles
- Force-feedback PC pointing devices (aka. computer mice)
- Autonomous robotic golf caddies
- Robotic brew-tank cleaning systems for Anheuser-Busch
- Machine shop metrology tools
- Mobile research robot platforms
- Robotic manipulator arms & hands
- Digitizing equipment for 3D design, character animation, and metrology
- RISC-processor ASIC development
- Opto-ASIC (optical encoder) sensor development
Please have a look around to get a flavor of the kind of work that I love to do. Feel free to contact me if you would like to discuss potential new opportunities.
Thanks!
-Bruce
..and, here's a picture of my new baby - a long-coveted Hardinge HLV-H dovetail bed toolroom lathe - whoo-hoo! (pictures of the move-in)
...and some IP hacking, just for amusement...