Lawrence Kincheloe
Lawrence Kincheloe | |
|---|---|
| Other names | Loki |
| Occupation | Chief Systems Architect, Molecular Reality Corporation |
| Known for | Designer of the MR1 Nanopore Reader |
| Fields | Hardware design; systems engineering |
Lawrence R. Kincheloe III, known as Loki, is the chief systems architect of Molecular Reality Corporation and the designer of the MR1 Nanopore Reader, an open-source design for a desktop instrument that senses molecules and particles as they pass through a nanopore.[1][2] The design's README ends with the line "Created by Lawrence R. Kincheloe III / Molecular Reality Corp (2026)", and its citation file names him as its only author.[2][3] His public profile on GitHub describes him as "Artist, Programmer, Maker, Professional Cat Wrangler".[4]
Background
Kincheloe has had a GitHub account since July 2013, and by October 2026 it held 241 public repositories.[4] A script from 2023 configures a fresh system image into a compute cluster. A project of 2025 "creates a digital library that lives in a book. It sits on your shelf and when you interact with it, the world of literature opens up for you." Another, started the same year, runs Hebbian learning, the rule by which connections between neurons that fire together grow stronger, on an ESP32 microcontroller.[4]
The one that led most directly to his work for the company is OpenAuto-CFD, which he began in August 2025. Its README calls it a "Software-Defined Engineering" framework: parametric CAD in OpenSCAD, fluid simulations in OpenFOAM and a language model acting as a "Virtual Engineer" are tied into one loop that searches a range of designs for 3D-printable fluid parts, with the parameters, physical limits and goals set in one YAML file.[5] The MR1 incorporates the same framework.[2]
Molecular Reality
Kincheloe joined Epic Quest, the role-playing game through which the company recruits and organizes its contributors, in November 2023.[1] The company's materials describe him as a "master hardware prototyper, maker, and multidisciplinary systems engineer".[1]
MR1 Nanopore Reader
The MR1 repository began on November 11, 2025, with a commit by Kincheloe whose whole message is "first commit".[6] On December 23 it gained a file for "Sentinel Nanopore Reader Rev 11" in OpenSCAD, a program that builds 3D models from scripts. Over the next ten months the mechanical design moved to build123d, a Python library for parametric CAD, and the electronics to KiCad.[2] By October 20, 2026, the repository held 454 commits. Kincheloe made 311 of them, and the other 143 came from the bot account of an AI coding agent, whose first pull request he merged on December 23, 2025.[2]
The design is a stack of four modules: a pump module that takes its power from USB-C, a reader board built around an ESP32-S3 that samples the current through the pore 100,000 times a second, a hexagonal cartridge that clamps a silicon chip between two chambers of salt water, and a small transimpedance amplifier board under the cartridge.[2] According to the README, OpenAuto-CFD joins the electrical CAD in KiCad, the mechanical CAD in build123d and OpenSCAD, and the fluid calculations into "a single automated pipeline".[2] Its test suite counts collisions between the 3D models of neighboring parts; as of October 25, 2026, its badge read "100 Passing (0 Collisions)".[2]
The release and its aftermath were his commits too. On October 15, 2026, he prepared the repository for open-source release under the GNU Affero General Public License; the citation file dates version 1.0.0 to October 16.[7][3] On October 18 a commit titled "refactor: Rename Daemon Pore/Sentinel to MR1 across codebase" gave the design its present name, and on October 21 "Relicense project to Public Domain under CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0-1.0)" placed all of it in the public domain.[8][9]
No MR1 Nanopore Reader has yet been built. The company sums up the state of the design in one line: "Designed. Simulated. Built and measured: not yet."[10] At release two of its four circuit boards had been routed, and the company's own review of the files listed what remained.[1]
See also
- MR1 Molecular Streaming Device, an earlier handheld prototype that shares the name
- Radical openness (Molecular Reality)
- Four-electrode cell
References
- ^ a b c d "Company records". Molecular Reality Corporation. October 2026.
- ^ a b c d e f g h "MR1 Nanopore Reader". GitHub. Retrieved October 25, 2026.
- ^ a b "MR1 Nanopore Reader: An Open-Source Low-Noise Solid-State and Biological Nanopore Sensing Platform (CITATION.cff, version 1.0.0)". GitHub. October 16, 2026.
- ^ a b c "Lawrence R Kincheloe III, profile and public repositories". GitHub. Retrieved October 26, 2026.
- ^ "OpenAuto-CFD: Universal Configuration-Driven CFD Optimizer (README)". GitHub. Retrieved October 26, 2026.
- ^ "first commit" (commit
c309606). EpicQuestBio/MR1. November 11, 2025. - ^ "chore: prepare repository for open-source release" (commit
676c499). EpicQuestBio/MR1. October 15, 2026. - ^ "refactor: Rename Daemon Pore/Sentinel to MR1 across codebase" (commit
2c06333). EpicQuestBio/MR1. October 18, 2026. - ^ "Relicense project to Public Domain under CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0-1.0)" (commit
a52fc0b). EpicQuestBio/MR1. October 21, 2026. - ^ Dev Okonkwo-Hale (October 17, 2026). "Molecular Reality Open-Sources a Nanopore Reader It Has Not Built Yet". The Picoampere.