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Last Updated June 2023
Shawnigan Lake, BC

Dennis Ren


Hi there!


I'm a curious dude who likes to build and learn about everything technology related.
These days, I lead the electrical team at Freeform
I helped bringApple's Vision Pro to life as a member of the desgin team
I've interned at Amazon's Amazon Go Hardware Infrastructure team, Apple's iPad Pro and Pencil Team, and Tesla's Manufacturing Test Team.
Before college, I spent most of my free time building Electronics Projects. At UCSD, I dedicate most of my free time to projects I lead at SEDS at UCSD.
I got my BS in Electrical Engineering from from UCSD in 2018
My Myers Briggs personality type is INTP. Thanks to college, I'm now moving towards ENTP.

I've done some cool stuff with my time


Freeform


Since Nov 21', Los Angeles,CA

I joined Freeform as the first electrical engineer. Here, I built the entire electrical hardware stack from the ground up and took it from prototype to production. My broad range of work here spans from high performance compute, high speed IO, power electroincis, precision opto-mechanical devices, robotics to algrithom design.

Apple


March 19' - Nov 21' Cupertino,CA

As I Hardware System Integrator on the Apple Vision Pro team, I first led the EE integration effort for the development platform HMD which incorprated all the cameras, displays, and sensors. I designed the HMD MLB and the majority of the system interconencts.
I was the Inward Facing Cameras subsystem DRI for the form factor product. I designed the eye tracking camera flexes and system interconnects for the optical module, I also contributed to MLB integration for the optical module.
I created an ecosystem of test and bringup automation tools to improve the efficiency of FA(failure analysis), and bring up testing.

Galactic Unite


March '18 - December '18' - La Jolla,CA

I created the Galactic Unite Gavin Jones Prize at UC San Diego, a prize designed to support undergraduate STEM+ leaders in Space Exploration. I synergized support from Virgin Galactic, UCSD Gordon Center, and donors (Namely Mr. Gavin Jones and Mr. Scott Borden). I'm proud to have left a lasting legacy at UC San Diego thanks to the support all the stakehodlers.

Amazon Go


June '18 - September '18' - Seattle,WA

I was part of the hardware infrastructure team at Amazon's unmanned store project - Amazon Go. I engaged in design work related to with sensor, power, and embedded technologies during my time there. During my internship there, the Amazon Go store count trippled! A month prior to my internship, I actually got to talk to Jeff Bezos!

Apple


June '17 - September '17' - Cupertino,CA

I worked as an intern at Apple's iPad EE Systems Integration team, in conjunction with a few projects I helped with at the Core Input Devices team. My area of focus was testing and validation of iPad Pros, and the interface between the iPad and the Apple Pencil. My work involved building complex PCBs for testing and validation, developing an automated corner case testing system for iPads, and scripting Verilog modules for prototypes.

Tesla


June '16 - September '16 - Fremont,CA

I worked in the mysterious Tesla Factory at Fremont. As an intern of the Manufacturing Test team, I helped built various End of Line testers to qualify components for final assembly my tester projects involved building industrial electrical panels, designing robotic features to interface with the parts under test, and designing custom PCB for certain custom functions. One of my projects was deployed at the Giga Factory.
During my time here, I got to talk to Elon Musk once, pretty cool eh!

Shtrahman Lab at Salk

September '16 - December '17 - La Jolla,CA

I spent a year at the Shtrahman Lab, researching the mystery of memory formation in the brain. I designed and built an automated system to run the Neurogenesis and Temporal Pattern Recognition experiment. The experiment teaches the mice a"song" by detecting binary decisions and awarding correct decisions. The brain is imaged while all this is happening. I also helped develop a miniature EEG system for mice.
I worked with Professor Matt Shtrahman during my time in the lab.

SEDS at UCSD


March '15 - June '18 - La Jolla,CA

I joined SEDS as "the Electronics guy", and built the EE core team at SEDS from scratch. I solo designed and built the control and DAQ system for SEDS's first test stand, and lead a team to build the launch control and avionics for the Vulcan-1 rocket. I moved on to kickoff the Colossus project as the Project Manager and Chief Engineer, taking it from infancy to completion. I also served as Vice President of Engineering from May to November 17'.

Here are a few awards and honors I've won over the years





Technical Project of the Year
SpaceVision 2017
November 2017

Colossus, the project I lead, won this award at SEDS-USA's annual conference SpaceVision!

Gordon Scholar
Jacob School of Engineering
September 2017

I am a Gordon Scholar at UCSD's Gordon Center for Engineering Leadership. This program was made possible by Mr. Bernard Gordon, the guy who invented Analog Digital Conversion!

Judge
XPrize Foundation
March 2017

I was invited to judge the Moonbots competition, a challenge created by the Google Lunar X-Prize to promote STEM education to teenagers all over the world.

World Record Programming Challange
Vex Robotics
March 2014

My automated procedure scored #1 in the world for the 2014 season of Vex Robotics Programming Challenge

I my projects,making things,coding,designing,building,imagning

4x4x4 Light Cube

Because it's cool

Janktop

I turned a PC to a Mac (Hardware wise too!)

Scrapeswa

pip package for scraping southwest's fare

Colossus SFS - Control Panel

SEDS UCSD

Electric Skateboard

For Fun

Marx Generator

Intro to HV

Musical Tesla Coil

Make 5kW of lighting sing

4 Stage Magnetic Accelerator

Hobby

dennisren.com

You are looking at it right now

Colossus

Huge Rocket Testing Trailer

Smart Knee Brace

Exoskeleton

Vulcan-1 Rocket

Bi-prop Rocket with a 3D printed engine

Minimal LC Meter

Hobby

Micromouse Self-navigating Robot

IEEE UCSD

Static Fire System

OG Rocket Sled

Bottle Tesla Coil

Hobby

100W SWPS

Portable Laptop Charger

Mice Behavior Training System

Salk

Trivi

A Trivia bot powered by scraping wikipedia

Vulcan-1 Sounding Rocket Avionics

SEDS UCSD

Remote Smart Lightswitch

State of the art at the time

Segway Robot

None

FociMap Monocular Depth

Hackathon Project, OpenCV

Polarized.News

Get the whole story

Earth Motivator

A Chrome Extension for aging awareness

MIPS Core in Verilog

Single Cycle Implementation

The Uglymobile

Self-driving car

Glydys, VRC 6264

VRC 2014

Solar Radio Telescope

Probing ionosphere

I've got skillz

Hardware


Analog

  • PCB Design (hi-speed,hi-power)
  • Power Management
  • Industrial Panel Design
  • High Voltage
  • Sensors and conditioning
  • Audio Systems

Digital

  • Microcontrollers
  • Communication Buses
  • Internet of Things

Software


Low-level

  • C for Embedded(8051)
  • Verilog

High-level

  • Python
  • MATLAB
  • C for Embeded(8051)
  • Git
  • LaTex
  • RegEx
  • Machine Learning

The Internet


Model

  • MySQL
  • SQLite

View

  • HTML5
  • CSS3
  • Javascript + jQuery

Controller

  • Django
  • Apache
  • REST API

Server Management

  • DNS
  • VPS
  • Linux CLI

Things


CAD

  • SolidWorks
  • Fusion 360
  • FEA

Making

  • Precision Soldering
  • Machining
  • 3D Printing
  • Woodworking
  • High Pressure Plumbing

Skills you can't touch

  • Leadership
  • Public Speaking
  • Project Management
  • Systems Engineering
  • Fundraising
  • Photography

You may have seen/heard me from ...

Bloomberg Businessweek

Febuary 2023

Featured in Ashlee Vances exclusive article about Freeform

Virgin Galactic

August 2018

The Galactic Unite Gavin Jone's Prize, which I created at UCSD, was featured in VG's twitter

Jacobs School of Engineering News

June 2018

Featured article about my brain-child, Colossus

ISDC, 2018

May 2018

I delivered a Keynote on student space exploration efforts at the International Space Development Conference

Rocket and Space Symposium 2017,18

May 2017,18

For two years, I presented keynote on the Development of Colossus

Planatery Radio

June 2018

Featured in Planetary Radio for Colossus

Black and Gold

June 2018

Shawnigan Lake School wrote an article about me as an Alumni in their annual publication

Space But Messier E12

March 2018

Chatted about Colossus in this space themed podcast

Send it Official

December 2017

Footies of my full send attempt was featured on @senditofficial's story

Colossus Launch Party

June 2018

I hosted a launch party for the launch of Colossus into service

Media Coverage for Vulcan-1

May 2016

Vulcan-1, the rocket I help designed, got some cool publicity

Media Coverage for SFS

June 2015

I was featured in Ashlee Vance's Hello World, Mojave eposode, also Discovery's Daily Planet Show

Tales of Modern China, S1E21

September 2014

Interviewed by the show while I was working on my projects in Beijing Makerspace. The show borrowed by electric Skateboard and Tesla Coil as props

I love action sports!

hahah