Robert Lewis Wyckoff was born in Washington D.C. on July 8, 1923, son of the late Ralph Dewey and Mildred Osborne (Lewis) Wyckoff. He spent his early childhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where he gave his first public piano recital at the age of six. Later the family moved to Houston, Texas. While a student at M.I.T. in Cambridge, he met Dorothea Sullivan and they were married in Nashua, New Hampshire on May 1, 1943. They settled in Natick, Massachusetts, later moving to Holliston, where they raised a family.

During World War II, Robert was employed by the military as a civilian radar technician, tuning and maintaining the newly installed radar systems on board Navy warships. Following the war he was employed by Raytheon for forty years. There he was lead technician on the teams that developed the Hawk and Sea Sparrow radar-guided defensive missile systems for the Army and Navy in the 1960's. In 1967 he began work on the development of the Patriot Missile system. He holds five patents for radar guidance and tracking system devices.

At home Robert brought his love of science and music to his children. He set up telescopes to view the moon and stars. He designed and flew kites, built harps and brought home all sorts of musical instruments, from bagpipes to saxophones, accordions to orchestra bells, which were piled under and around the two pianos and the Hammond organ which filled the family living room. An inveterate tinkerer, he loved to find ways to improve the design of something purchased. In Robert, scientist and engineer were united with the child at heart.

During the 1950's and 60's, Robert was an active member in the Universalist Church on Weston Road in Wellesley where he taught Sunday school and was on the Pulpit Committee. He served on the Holliston High School Music Committee. He and Dorothea were active members of the Horse and Buggy Club. An Eagle Scout himself, he worked with the town's Boy Scout troop, teaching knot tying and leading the patrols on winter hikes.

In 1988, Robert and Dorothea retired and moved to Asheville, North Carolina where they were active in the Unitarian-Universalist Church and in the Senate campaigns of Harvey Gantt. But a quiet retirement was not for them and in 1993 they sold their home in Asheville, bought a Ford pickup with a 40 foot trailer, and embarked upon an American Odyssey. They traveled south in the winter to visit grandchildren in Georgia and Florida, north in the summer to visit grandchildren in Massachusetts, and all over the country in between times, from the Big Bend Country in Texas, to the shores of Lake Superior in Michigan.

In 2000, with the help of their children, they came home to Boston, moving into an apartment in Roxbury. Robert's final years and days were spent at home with his books, his computer and his keyboard. Though increasingly limited physically by his illness, Robert continued to enjoy reading novels and mysteries and playing the piano. He kept up with developments in the space program on the NASA website, and regularly printed off online articles of scientific interest from the New York Times and Scientific American.

He is survived by his sister, Marjorie Breckenridge of Grove City, Ohio, two sons, Robert L. Wyckoff II and Richard D. Wyckoff of Roxbury, four daughters, Margo Wyckoff of Delray Beach, Florida; Vanessa Lukas of Yulee, Florida; Bonnie Boudineau of Geneva, Switzerland and Staci Hartman of Pickerington, Ohio.

Also, by nine grandchildren, Gretchen Pinkava, Roberta Wooldridge, Robert L. Wyckoff III, Chandra and John Patrick Lukas, Inès and Charlène Boudineau, Ryan and Adam Navratil; and by four great-grandchildren, Erin, Jason and Dylan Wooldridge, and Ian Malcolm Pinkava.