Hello! My name is Lawrence Papincak.

I have spent my life trying to understand how the world works. As a child, that meant taking apart household appliances, reverse-engineering remote-control cars, and imagining how machines might one day think. That curiosity matured into a career in engineering, where I found my greatest fulfillment in robotics, a field that represents the convergence of every major engineering discipline.

What drives my work is the ability to view a robotics problem as a complete system: from mechanical design to electrical architecture, from software structure to sensor physics. I have intentionally developed myself into an engineer who can operate across these domains, allowing me to identify system-level tradeoffs and maximize real-world performance. Robotics rewards this perspective, and it is where I consistently deliver my strongest impact.

My engineering journey also began in a far more modest way: with a single toolbox and a single screwdriver. What started as simple curiosity grew into a career and into a lifelong personal practice. Over time, that toolbox evolved into a fully outfitted, garage-based machine shop, and engineering became something I brought as close to home as possible. Today, my hands are rarely idle. My personal projects span not only robotics technologies, but also artistic pursuits in prop design, painting, and woodworking.

In my free time, you will usually find me tinkering in my garage, whether at the mill or lathe, running a CNC machine, working on various 3D printers, building circuits at a fully stocked electronics prototyping workstation, or designing parts at my CAD machine. I find deep reward in taking ideas from the sketch pad into physical reality, and this constant cycle of making continues to sharpen both my technical instincts and my creative problem-solving.

I hold both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. I earned my undergraduate degree at Drexel University, where the cooperative education program provided 18 months of full-time industry experience. This foundation shaped my ability to integrate quickly into engineering teams and contribute effectively from the outset of my career.

I completed my graduate studies at Carnegie Mellon University within the Field Robotics Center of the Robotics Institute, working under William “Red” Whittaker. There, I led and contributed to projects in autonomous navigation, large-scale system integration, and field robotics operations, ranging from remediation of uranium enrichment facilities to lunar surface exploration concepts. These experiences refined my ability to manage complex robotics systems and guide multidisciplinary teams toward practical, deployed solutions.

After completing my Master’s degree, I joined Blue Origin in Seattle, WA. During my tenure I worked on embedded systems, automated test infrastructure, and robotic sensing solutions, collaborated with external research partners to develop advanced sensing and navigation technologies, supported simulation and prototyping efforts for spacecraft operations, and contributed to long-term strategic planning for robotics and automation capabilities.

Across my career, I have focused on building machines that operate reliably in the real world, systems that integrate hardware, software, and physics into cohesive, mission-driven designs. My curiosity has never faded, and robotics remains the arena where I thrive.