Embedded
Logical Elegance
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Embedded is the show for people who love gadgets. Making them, breaking them, and everything in between. Weekly interviews with engineers, educators, and enthusiasts. Find the show, blog, and more at embedded.fm.
Available episodes
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5 days ago
358: Woodturning Influencer
Emily Velasco (@MLE_Online) spoke with us about artistic projects, retro-future aesthetics, and scientific communication.
She shows and describes the projects on YouTube: Emily’s Electric Oddities including the Optical Sound Decoder, Port-A-Vid, Hairy Cacti, and the Lissajukebox.
Many of Emily’s professional writings can be found on Wevolver, usually redirected to sites where they are published.
Jan 8, 2021
357: How Do You Think Waffles Work?
Chris and Elecia talk about making albums, making progress, DIY shot reporting, getting credit, and project management.
Check out the Embedded transcripts (now with older shows appearing weekly!). The Embedded Patreon provides the funds for guest mics, transcripts (new and old), and new shirt designs. Thank you very much to the supporters.
Thank you to our listeners for raising over $5000 for DigitalNest!
Books and articles mentioned:
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Tessellations for Everyone
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Risk Up Front: Managing Projects in a Complex World
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Software Project Survival Guide
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Object-oriented design patterns in the kernel
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Open source gunshot sensor
Thank you to 2020 sponsors including Qt and Triplebyte as well as InterWorking Labs for their early patreon-business-level support.
Dec 31, 2020
253: We’ll Pay Them in Fun (Repeat)
We spoke with Kathleen Tuite (@kaflurbaleen) about augmented reality, computer vision, games with a purpose, and meetups.
Kathleen’s personal site (filled with many interesting projects we didn’t talk about) is SuperFireTruck.com. Her graduate work was in using photogrammetry to build models.
Kathleen works for GrokStyle, a company that lets you find furniture you like based on what you see. GrokStyle is used in the Augmented Reality try-it-at-home IKEA Place app.
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Theory of Fun for Game Design by Raph Koster
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Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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Language translating/learning app and online game is Duolingo
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TensorFlow in Javascript
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HCOMP 2018: Human Computer Conference with Keynote by Zooniverse’s Lucy Fortson (no video for that yet but we hope)
Dec 17, 2020
356: Deceive and Manipulate You
Leonardo Laguna Ruiz of Vult spoke with us about modelling electronics, modular synthesizers, and modulating sound. We talked in detail about applied digital signal processing.
Leonardo’s website is www.vult-dsp.com. Check out the Freak Filter, the user manual alone is a course in signal processing. You can buy finished or DIY versions on vult-dsp.com/store.
The physical hardware is a Eurorack module (wiki) but the Vult modules are also available for the VCV Rack, a Eurorack simulator that you can use to build your own modular synthesizer.
Leonardo has a YouTube channel where he goes in depth on signal processing: youtube.com/c/LeonardoLagunaRuiz. He’s also written about modeling vintage analog sound on the Wolfram blog.
For more information about the Vult programming language (or an example for how to build your own, check out the github repository: http://modlfo.github.io/vult/overview/
This episode was sponsored by Qt, a cross platform application framework for desktop, mobile and embedded devices. That means you get a full set of libraries for nearly everything you can think of, plus a world-class GUI that will give you a native look wherever your code runs.
Try Qt for free at www.qt.io/download (qt.io/embeddedfm ! And check out Qt for MCUs!)
Dec 10, 2020
355: Favorite Ways to Make Noises
Helen Leigh (@helenleigh) joined us to talk about music, electronics, books, and starting a new job at CrowdSupply (@crowd_supply).
Helen was previously on Embedded #261: Blowing Their Fragile Little Minds where we talked about subversive geography, her book The Crafty Kid's Guide to DIY Electronics, and the mini.mu musical gloves.
Helen has a book coming out in 2021 about DIY Music Tech including a soft version of the Michel Waisvisz' CrackleBox (Kraakdos). Check out some of the projects in HackSpace magazine issue 36 and 37 (the book will be serialised in HackSpace). Or look on YouTube for some examples of Helen’s purring tentacle and her circuit sculpture harp.
Helen mentioned Bunnie Huang’s Precursor, an open mobile phone, on CrowdSupply (campaign ending shortly).
The Giant German Congress mentioned is the CCC Congress Festival
Helen’s preferred thread (the one you can actually get) is Madiera’s conductive threads. Hit the contact link for purchasing. (Helen notes you can use it for both sides in a sewing machine!)
Dec 3, 2020
354: Better Snowmen in Finland
Becky Worledge of the Qt Company (@qtproject) spoke with us about application frameworks, organizing large code bases, and automotive regulations.
The best place to get started with Qt is the getting started page: doc.qt.io/qt-5/gettingstarted.html
Or skip that and head straight for the code: github.com/qt
Maybe backtrack to see what is available: qt.io/product/features
Hmm, was there talk of Qt and Python? PySide was it? qt.io/qt-for-python
But wait, Qt for MCU? What platforms are supported? QtForMCUs/qtul-supported-platforms.html
Finally, don’t get eaten by a Grue, sense when they are coming: doc.qt.io/qt-5/qtsensors-grue-example.html
Qt6 is coming out Dec 2020. So maybe replace all the qt-5 in the links with qt-6 to see if it is ready yet!
Oh, and Qt is hiring: qt.io/careers
The quote at the end is not from Abraham Lincoln. (Quote Investigator). Still a good thought.
Nov 25, 2020
353: Red for the Ones That Might Blow Up
Seth Hillbrand (@SethHillbrand), lead developer for KiCAD (@kicad_pcb), spoke with us about open source development, EDA tools, pronunciation, and inclusion.
Check out KiCAD!
Seth’s company provides support for KiCAD (kipro-pcb.com, @kiproeda).
Nov 19, 2020
352: Baby's First Hydrofluoric Acid
John McMaster (@johndmcmaster) told us about the process of opening up chips to see how the processors are structured and what the firmware says.
See John’s website for information on getting started (as well as digging much deeper).
John has given some interesting Hardwear.io talks including Capturing Mask ROMs and Taming Hydrofluoric Acid to Extract Firmware. His talks and many others are available on the Hardwear.io archive. Or sign up for the Hardwear.io Online Hardware Security Training, Berlin Jan 2021.
As mentioned in the show:
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John wrote a blog post about his top lab accidents and explosions.
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Paper: Reverse engineering Flash EEPROM memories using Scanning Electron Microscopy by Franck Courbon, Sergei Skorobogatov, and Christopher Woods
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Rompar and bitract are the two programs mentioned as helpful for getting from an image to binary code.
Nov 12, 2020
351: Dextral or Sinistral
Chris and Elecia discuss transcripts, lightsabers, seashells, python, numpy, matlab and how to get into embedded systems development.
Embedded show transcripts are available at embedded.fm/transcripts
Elecia’s origami github repository includes a python script for generating origami shell folding patterns. The paper described was Analysis of Shell Coiling: General Problems by David M. Raup from the Journal of Paleontology , Sep., 1966, Vol. 40, No. 5.
Chris used this model to print his lightsaber: Star Wars Lightsaber (Normal version) from YouMagine
The episode was sponsored by Triplebyte. If you are looking to prove your skills, develop your knowledge, or find a job you love, check out Triplebyte.
Nov 5, 2020
350: The State of the Empire Is Good
Ben Hencke (@ledmage, @im889) updated us on blinking lights and running a small hardware business. You can find the current PixelBlaze in the Electomage store on Tindie (tindie.com/stores/electromage/) or signup for a shiny new version on CrowdSupply.
Ben’s personal site (bhencke.com) has lots of projects including a page devoted to the awesome Pixelblaze projects (including the BioTronEsis alien light sea creatures which someone who hosts this show hopes will be in her Christmas stocking).
When Ben is making Pixelblaze, the brand is ElectroMage (electromage.com/) so you can see more about Pixelblaze there including the forum.
We didn’t talk about TapGlo, the arcade ping pong table that Ben is also working on.
Favorite solder paste: LOCTITE GC 10 paste (henkel-adhesives)
About his favorite acronym, Ben says, “XMLHttpRequest is my favorite because it perfectly illustrates how we're (developers) bad at naming things and like to come up with arbitrary rules for things. The story about how XML is all caps and Html is camel case is just too perfect, and it's popular use rarely has anything to do with XML”
Finally, There are 40 different flavors of Kit Kat. There are 12 flavors of candy corn, they all taste the same.
Oct 29, 2020
242: The Cilantro of Robots (Repeat)
Christine Sunu (@christinesunu) spoke with us about the feelings we get from robots.
For more information about emotive design, check out Christine’s website: christinesunu.com. From there you can find hackpretty.com, some of her talks (including the TED talk with the Fur Worm), and links to her projects (such as Starfish Cat and a Cartoon Guide to the Internet of Things). You can find more of her writing and videos on BuzzFeed and The Verge. You can also hire her product development company Flash Bang.
Embedded 142: New and Improved Appendages is where Sarah Petkus offers to let her robot lick us.
Keepon Robot (or on Wikipedia)
Books we talked about:
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Accelerando by Charles Stross
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Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less by Sherry Turkle (MIT site)
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Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age by Sherry Turkle (MIT site)
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Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness by Peter Godfrey-Smith (Note: E…
Oct 22, 2020
349: Open Down to the Transistor
Drew Fustini (@pdp7) spoke with us about building Linux, RISC-V cores, and many other things. Links, so many links!
Drew is a board member of the BeagleBoard.org Foundation and of the Open Source Hardware Association (OSHWA.org). He is an open source hardware designer at OSHPark (he recommends their blog!). He writes a monthly column for Hackspace Magazine, for example The Rise of the FPGA in Issue 26 and Intro to RISC-V.
Yocto is a tool to help build a Linux distribution specific to your board and application! Bootlin offers free training material for Yocto and OpenEmbedded (as well as many other things such as Embedded Linux and Linux kernel development). Or there is a video: Buildroot vs Yocto: Differences for Your Daily Job - Luca Ceresoli at Embedded Linux Conference. Or look at Embedded Apprentice Linux Engineer (e-ale.org). Or maybe another video: “Yocto Project Dev Day Virtual 2020 #3: Yocto Project Kernel Lab, Hands-On, Part 1” by Trevor Woerner.
RISC-V is an open…
Oct 15, 2020
348: Flop Onto the Bouncy Castle
Whitney Huang of Zipline (@zipline) spoke with us about drone delivery of medical products: technology, operations, and applications.
For more information about Zipline, check out flyzipline.com. Also, Zipline is hiring for positions in San Francisco, CA, USA, North America and Ghana, Africa.
Tacocopter was a thing in 2011. (Ok, not a very serious thing but still.)
Oct 8, 2020
347: Be Careful About the Bits
Chris (@stoneymonster) and Elecia (@logicalelegance) discuss API design and team dynamics.
Elecia’s book: Making Embedded Systems
Embedded Patreon
StewMac (Ukulele kits)
Transcript: embedded.fm/transcripts/347
Oct 1, 2020
346: You Have Everything You Need
Sophy Wong (@sophywong) creates projects she can wear and writes about them so others can make them as well. We talked about fashion, design, inspiration, and motivation.
Sophy’s website is sophywong.com. We spoke about her book, Wearable Tech Projects. Check out her projects on Adafruit, Hackspace Magazine and Make Magazine. She also did a video interview with Tested.
Sophy’s space suit was used in Saul’s King of Misery music video.
Sophy has found inspiration in Debby Millman’s podcast Design Matters, Diana Eng’s Fashion Geek: Clothes Accessories Tech, and the work of Sagmeister.
Transcript: embedded.fm/transcripts/346
Sep 24, 2020
345: Do What Apple Says
Gretchen Walker gave advice on creating a BLE iOS application.
Gretchen wrote The Ultimate Guide to Apple’s Core Bluetooth on the PunchThrough (@PunchThrough) blog. There are many other good posts on the blog about BLE from a device perspective and app development (iOS and Android). PunchThrough also makes LightBlue, a great BLE debugging app you can find wherever you find your mobile apps.
PunchThrough is hiring embedded software engineers in the Minneapolis, MN area.
Chris and Gretchen both recommend Ray Wenderlich’s site for learning about Swift. Chris also liked the Big Nerd Ranch books: iOS Programming and Swift Programming.
Elecia liked the NovelBits.io writeup about getting maximum throughput on BLE.
Apple Accessory Design Guide
Sep 17, 2020
220: Cascading Waterfall of Lights (Repeat)
Ben Hencke (@im889) spoke with us about OHWS, Tindie, and blinking lights.
Ben sells his Pixelblaze WiFi LED controller on his ElectroMage store on Tindie. It is based on the ESP8266 and uses the DotStar (APA102) lights.
To hear John Leeman’s trip report on the Open Hardware Summit (OHWS), listen to Don’t Panic Geocast, Episode 140 – “Juicero of Tractors”
Ben’s websites are bhencke.com and electromage.com. Go there if you want to see some of Ben’s projects, including Synthia. You can also find Ben on Hackaday, Github, and YouTube.
We talked with Charles Lohr about ESP8266 WiFi controlled lights and ColorChord on Embedded.fm episode 102: The Deadly Fluffy Bunny (With WiFi).
Laser cut mandalas
OSHPark
Small Batch Assembly
More about the 4-bit Radio Shack computer (and an Arduino-based emulator for it!)
Santa Cruz Idea Fab Lab
Sep 10, 2020
344: Superposition, Entanglement, and Interference
Kitty Yeung (@KittyArtPhysics) spoke with us about the superposition of quantum computing and fashion.
If you want to learn more about quantum computing, check out Kitty’s series on Hackaday’s Quantum Computing Through Comics.
Kitty works for Microsoft in Quantum Computing (@MSFTQuantum).
Kitty’s art and fashion are available on her site, Art By Physicist, and shop shop.kittyyeung.com. Her recent addition is the Constellation Dress. There is a coupon code in the show.
Kitty has some other DIY fashion projects: Made of Mars and Saturn Dress.
@artbyphysicist on Instagram
LinkedIn
Sep 3, 2020
343: Getting Brains to Work
Chris and Elecia discuss transcripts, listener emails, and brains.
We already have a post about the dangers of using Arduino for professional work.
Elecia got a Cricut Maker to help her make origami and then discovered SVG files were editable (Intro to SVG). She’s putting her origami crease patterns in a github repo eleciawhite/origami), where else would you put it?
About brains, Elecia was reading from Smart But Scattered.
Aug 27, 2020
342: That Girl's Brain
Jess Frazelle (@jessfraz) of Oxide Computer (@oxidecomputer) spoke with us about hyperscalers (large companies that make their own datacenter server hardware) and podcasts.
Jess wrote an article about the power efficiency measurements of datacenter servers: Power to the People (ACM Queue August 2020).
The Oxide podcast is available on oxide.computer/podcast as well as your usual podcast apps. Jess particularly recommended the episode with Jonathan Blow.
Oxide is working to make hyperscaler-style hardware available to everyone. Their goal is to open source all their hardware and software: github.com/oxidecomputer. They use the Rust language for much of their development.
Jess has a blog: blog.jessfraz.com
Rust
Aug 20, 2020
236: The Concept of Delayed Gratification (Repeat)
Roger Linn (@roger_linn) gave us new ideas about musical instruments, detailing how wonderful expressive control, 3D buttons, and keyscanning can be.
Roger’s company is Roger Linn Design. We talked extensively about the LinnStrument, some about the AdrenaLinn for guitar, and only a little bit about the analog drum machine Tempest.
A key matrix circuit is a popular way to handle a large number of buttons but it falls prey to n-key rollover. Roger adds force sense resistors to this (FSR example at Sparkfun).
If you have an idea for an instrument, Roger has already written his response to your request for a prototype. Roger gave a keynote address at ADC '16 about the LinnStrument, including showing the sounds it can make.
OHMI Trust is the one handed musical instrument society enabling music making for everyone.
Roger mentioned some other expressive instruments including:
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Roli Seaboard
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Haken Continuum
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Madrona Labs Soundplane
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Eigenharp
Aug 13, 2020
341: Big Hugs to Everybody
Phoenix Perry (@phoenixperry) returns to speak with us about education and the importance of merging art and technology.
Phoenix’s website is phoenixperry.com. The art installation crossing the virtual and the physical world was called Forest Day Dream. Phoenix is teaching a free online class: Create Expressive Video Games.
Phoenix is the Master’s degree coordinator for University of the Arts London Creative Computing Institute.
Diversity and accessibility are important, some resources:
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FeministInternet.org
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We Are Not Users: Dialogues, Diversity, and Design
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Archaeologies of Touch: Interfacing with Haptics from Electricity by David Paris
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Critical Play: Radical Game Design by Mary Flanagan
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Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy by Cathy O'Neil
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Gone Home (Steam game)
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Her Story (Steam game)
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Bury me, my Love (Mobile game)
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#selfcare (Mobile game)
Phoenix was previously on Embedded 204: Ab…
Aug 6, 2020
340: The Left Bunny Slipper
Chris and Elecia talk about getting transcriptions, accessibility, operating systems, and networking.
Elecia recommends reading Haben by Haben Girma (@HabenGirma).
Transcripts will initially be only available to Patreon supporters. To become a Patreon supporter, go to patreon.com/embedded. If you can’t be a supporter and still really want the transcripts, hit the contact link.
Chris Gammell’s nifty new podcast (video!) is Contextual Electronics.
Want to know more about how operating systems work? Listeners recommended Miro Samek’s video series.
Chris answered some questions about LISP networking. More information about the layers of the network can be found in the OSI model. The mobile focused LISP project that Chris worked on is now at openoverlayrouter.org and has pointers for more documentation and code.
Jul 30, 2020
339: Integrity of the Curling Club
Dan Zimmerman (@dmz) spoke with us about voting, voting machines, building trust in software, and transparency.
Dan works for Galois (https://galois.com/ , @galois) and Free and Fair (https://freeandfair.us/, @free_and_fair). He worked on the US Vote Foundation’s E2E-VIV Project on the Future of Voting. The artifacts from that project are on github: github.com/GaloisInc/e2eviv.
Dan (and Galois) worked with Microsoft on ElectionGaurd, a suite of tools to help make elections end-to-end verifiable, The tools are open source: github.com/microsoft/electionguard
The Helios verifiable online election system is also open source: github.com/benadida/helios-server
We failed to talk about the DARPA SSITH and FETT programs but if you are still reading the show notes, they might be of interest. We also didn’t talk about the National Academies report on Securing the Vote.
Jul 23, 2020
338: Working With People Is Terrible
In a surprising turn of tables, Christopher White (@stoneymonster) joins the show as a guest to talk about his career, burnout, and musical instruments.
Christopher attended Harvey Mudd College for his undergrad mathematics degree then got a Master’s degree in physics at San Jose State University.
Some things he has worked on include:
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Multicast
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OSPF
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LISP
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OCT
His current band is 12ax7 (12ax7.fm). The outro music is a track called “Solstice”.
Jul 16, 2020
337: Not Completely Explode
Kate Temkin (@ktemkin) explained USB: how to get started, general orientation, useful tools, and when you’d use it in embedded systems.
Kate’s website is ktemkin.com. She works at Great Scott Gadgets.
References for USB:
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USB in a Nutshell
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USB Complete by Jan Axelson
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USB Embedded Hosts: The Developer’s Guide by Jan Axelson
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USB Specification, Chapter 9: USB Device Framework
USB Stacks we talked about:
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TinyUSB from Adafruit
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Lufa
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Cortex libopencm3
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For the host side: libusb
Open Source VIDs are available from Openmoko and Pid.codes
Kate recently gave a talk about making USB accessible. Part of the talk was about Luna, an FPGA based USB multitool.
Some open source FPGA tools:
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Symbiflow.github.io
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Yosys: http://www.clifford.at/yosys/
Jul 2, 2020
336: Common Sense Is Not Common Sense
Philana Benton (@TechnoPHILiANA) spoke with us about mentoring: how to be a good mentor, what to expect, and what not to do.
If you’d like to try mentoring, sign up for Philana’s DivTekSpace (divtekspace.org). You can do a resume review, a mock interview, give career advice, and/or refer students to your company.
Philana’s home page is philanaaurelia.com
We also mentioned imentor.org
Jun 25, 2020
335: Patching on the Surface of Mars
Joel Sherrill (JoelSherrill) spoke with us about choosing embedded operating systems and why open source RTEMS (RTEMS_OAR) is a good choice.
Embedded #307: Big While Loop: Chris and Elecia talk about when and where they’d use RTOSs
Embedded #93: Delicious Gumbo: Joel gave an introduction to the RTEMS RTOS
Joel works at OAR Corp (oarcorp.com) on RTEMS (rtems.org). RTEMS runs on many development boards including the BeagleBone, Raspberry Pi, and two FPGA boards: ARM ZYNQ-7000 and the Arty Board.
Joel recommends the operating systems book by Alan Burns and Andy Wellens. It comes in many flavors and editions including Real Time Systems and Programming Languages: Ada 95, Real-Time Java and Real-Time C/POSIX (3rd Edition).
NASA Core Flight System (https://cfs.gsfc.nasa.gov/)
Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System (EPICS) (https://epics-controls.org/)
Jun 18, 2020
226: Camp AVR Vs. Camp Microchip (Repeat)
Jay Carlson (@jaydcarlson), author of The Amazing $1 Microcontroller, joined us to talk about comparing microcontrollers and determining our biases. This was an in-depth comparison of different micro features.
Jay is an electrical engineer specializing in electronics design and embedded programming (contact). His blog is new and interesting.
We talked to SEGGER’s Dirk Akeman about JLink on #218: Neutron Star of Dev Boards.
Jun 11, 2020
334: Bag of Heuristics
Matt Godbolt (@mattgodbolt) joined us to talk about assembly code, becoming a verb, 6502s, exploring compilers, and application binary interfaces.
Compiler Explorer can be found at godbolt.org. The code is on github (compiler-explorer/compiler-explorer).
Matt also has jsbeeb, a BBC Micro (6502) simulator. You can try it out at bbc.godbolt.org. Its code and more information is on github (mattgodbolt/bbc-micro-emulation). Matt recently gave a video presentation about jsbeeb for ABUG.
Some other videos that may be of interest:
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CppCon 2016: Jason Turner “Rich Code for Tiny Computers: A Simple Commodore 64 Game in C++17”
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Matt’s YouTube videos on using Compiler Explorer
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Just enough Assembly for Compiler Explorer - Anders Schau Knatten
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CppCon 2017: CB Bailey “Enough x86 Assembly to Be Dangerous”
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CppCon 2017: Carl Cook “When a Microsecond Is an Eternity: High Performance Trading Systems in C++”
The best compiler book seems to be The Dragon Book.…
Jun 4, 2020
333: Project Purgatory
Bailey Steinfadt (@baileysteinfadt) spoke with us about the makerspaces, communities, following many paths, and misbehaving robots.
Bailey works at Dojo Five and Stone Path Engineering.
Area 515 is a non-profit maker space in the Des Moines, Iowa area. They supported their local emergency services with over 6000 face shields. If you are looking for something to do with your 3d printer, look at One Shot Bias Tape Maker and the how to use it video.
Bailey recommended the Makers On Tap podcast and grill mats for soldering. Elecia recommended the You Can Do It!: The Merit Badge Handbook for Grown-Up Girls as a book she’s only picked up once in a bookstore years ago but has thought about as an excuse to pick up new skills.
May 28, 2020
332: There Were Fires
Doug Harriman of Simplexity (@SimplexityPD) spoke with us about motors, controllers, and designing mechatronic systems.
Simplexity (or if you want to contact them)
Doug recommends Control Systems Engineering by Norman S. Nise. Elecia recommends Notes on Diffy Qs by Jiří Lebl from American Institute of Mathematics list of free and approved math textbooks. They both like the 3 Brown 1 Blue YouTube channel.
If you liked the part about how to choose a motor, you might want to watch Doug’s Webinar on DC Motors & Motion Control Systems (you’ll have to give your info to see it).
May 21, 2020
331: Friendly Tea Kettle
Dr. Katy Huff (@katyhuff) spoke with us about nuclear engineering, effective software development, and the apropos command.
Katy wrote an O’Reilly book describing Python software development to scientists: Effective Computation in Physics: Field Guide to Research with Python. She has been involved with Software Carpentry.
Katy is a professor at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering. She uses Bell and Glasstone’s Nuclear Reactor Theory in her Nuclear Reactor Theory class.
Katy’s personal site
Stellerator
Godiva Device
Janelle Shane creates the AI Weirdness blog. (She was also a guest in #275: Don’t Do What the Computer Tells You.)
May 14, 2020
330: I Just Want a Dog
Chris Svec (@christophersvec) chatted with us about going from engineer to manager and working from home.
Chris had many book recommendations (these are affiliate links):
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Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green (fiction)
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Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink
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The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change by Camille Fournier
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Resilient Management by Lara Hogan
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The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering by Frederick P. Brooks Jr.
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Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager by Michael Lopp
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How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Chris is hiring for his team. Check out the iRobot Jobs page or look at the specific jobs he’s hiring for (in Boston, MA): Associate Software Engineer and Principal Software Engineer.
Chris gave a talk to Purdue students about working from home, there is a video and a summary blog post.
An interes…
May 7, 2020
190: Trust Me, I'm Right (Repeat)
Matt Godbolt (@mattgodbolt) spoke with us about settling arguments with Compiler Explorer.
March Micro Madness is here!
Compiler Explorer comes in different flavors:
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https://rust.godbolt.org/
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https://d.godbolt.org/
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https://go.godbolt.org/
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https://gcc.godbolt.org/
You can see the beta version by putting a beta on the end: https://gcc.godbolt.org/beta/
This a fully open source project. You can read the code and/or run your own version:
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https://github.com/mattgodbolt/compiler-explorer
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https://github.com/mattgodbolt/compiler-explorer-image
Matt works at DRW working on low latency software. Note that DRW is hiring for software engineers. You can read about the evolution of Compiler Explorer on their blog.
Matt’s personal blog is xania.org. You might like parts about 6502 Timings. He also has several conference talks on YouTube including x86 Internals for Fun & Profit and Emulating a 6502 in Javascript. Matt was previously at Argonaut Games.
Jason…
Apr 30, 2020
329: At Least 32-Bits, Thank You
Kate Stewart (@_kate_stewart) of the Linux Foundation spoke with us about the Zephyr operating system (@ZephyrIoT).
Some Zephyr docs:
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Getting Started Guide
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Supported boards
Two projects using Zephyr:
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Open Artificial Pancreas System (openaps.org)
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Zephyr on a Hearing Aid talk at Embedded Linux Conference 2019
Apr 23, 2020
328: Debugging Like a Monkey
Christopher (@stoneymonster) and Elecia (@logicalelegance) discuss listener questions about USB, thesis projects, prototype iterations, motivation, and processor cores.
Chris has been using audiomovers.com to mix audio remotely in real time.
Apr 9, 2020
327: A Little Bit of Human Knowledge
Daniel Situnayake (@dansitu) spoke with us about machine learning on microcontrollers.
Dan is the author of TinyML: Machine Learning with TensorFlow Lite on Arduino and Ultra-Low-Power Microcontrollers. You can read the first several chapters at tinymlbook.com.
TinyML is a part of TensorFlow Lite. See the microcontroller getting started guide.
Dan works for Edge Impulse (@EdgeImpulse) which is making tools for easier machine learning integration at the edge. Their tools are free and they also have a getting started guide.
Dan recently posted on the Edge Impulse blog about training a TinyML model to capture lion roars.
For TinyML meetups and a forum, check out tinyml.org
Lacuna Space: low cost sensors transmitting to space
Apr 2, 2020
326: Wrong in the Right Way
Erin Talvitie of Harvey Mudd College spoke with us about machine learning, hallucinating data, and making good decisions based on imperfect predictions.
Paper we discussed: Self-Correcting Models for Model-Based Reinforcement Learning
Erin’s grant: Using Imperfect Predictions to Make Good Decisions
For a reinforcement learning book, Erin suggests Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction by Richard S. Sutton and Andrew G. Barto or the lecture series by David Silver.
For a machine learning book, Elecia likes Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn, Keras, and TensorFlow: Concepts, Tools, and Techniques to Build Intelligent Systems by Aurélien Géron
Mar 26, 2020
325: Hasn’t Been R2D2'd
John Saunders (@NYCCNC) spoke with us about building a Johnny Five robot on his NYC CNC YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/saunixcomp).
You can find all of the Johnny Five build videos on a playlist or check out the NYC CNC page. As mentioned, Input Inc did a lot of the preliminary work.
John recommends books:
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How to Win Friends and Influence People
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The E-Myth Revisited
John is also the founder of Saunders Machine Works (they have a contact page).
How Johnny Five got his name
Mar 19, 2020
324: I’ll Let You Name Your Baby
Adam Wolf (@adamwwolf) of Wayne and Layne (www.wayneandlayne.com) spoke with us about making kits, museum exhibit engineering, working on KiCad, and extraterrestrial art philosophy.
Adam has a personal blog on www.feelslikeburning.com/blog/ as well as a website adamwolf.org. Adam co-wrote Make: Lego and Arduino Projects
If you want to know how to contribute to KiCad libraries, check out their instruction page: kicad-pcb.org/libraries/contribute/
We also mentioned:
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Evil Mad Scientist’s Guide to Improving Open Source Hardware Visual Diffs
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KiCad Automation Tools: tools to autogenerate KiCad artifacts when committing to git
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Kivy: open source Python library for making displays
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Cedux: application framework
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OKGo Upside Down and Inside Out video and Art in Space project
Mar 12, 2020
207: I Love My Robot Monkey Head (Repeat)
Professor Ayanna Howard of Georgia Tech joins us to talk about robotics including how androids interact with humans. Some of her favorite robot include the Darwin, the Nao, and, for home-hacking, the Darwin Mini.
Ayanna has a profile on EngineerGirl.org, a site that lets young women ask questions of women in the engineering profession.
Elecia has been working on a typing robot named Ty, documented on the Embedded.fm blog. It uses a MeArm, on sale in July 2017 at Hackaday.com, with coupon noted in show. (don't use PayPal to check out or you can't apply the coupon).
Other robots for trying out robots: Lego Mindstorms (lots of books, project ideas, and incredible online tutorials!), Cozmobot, Dash and Dot. Some robotics competition leagues include Vex, Botball, and FIRST.
Mar 5, 2020
323: Snail Appnote
Carmen Parisi spoke with us about changing jobs from a semiconductor specialist at TI to an electrical engineering generalist at Wasatch Photonics.
Carmen was previously on Embedded 216: Bavarian Folk Metal and formerly was the host of The Engineering Commons podcast
Carmen works at Wasatch Photonics making Ramen Spectrometers.
Spudger
Feb 27, 2020
322: Learn Assembly Code
Ramiro Montes De Oca spoke with us about modular electronics, chiplets, and his company aThing.io
athing.io
Chiplets
Project Tinkertoy (movie) is a 1953 US Navy project on automated manufacturing of modular electronics.
Ramiro mentioned his accelerator: CoFoundersLab Accelerator
Feb 20, 2020
321: The Edge of Science Fiction
Jason Derleth of the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts Program spoke with us about what it takes to win a NIAC award.
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NIAC program homepage
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Some of the accepted NIAC studies
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Key dates: Note: Solicitations open in June 2020!
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Apply to NIAC
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A guide for NSPIRES, the payment system
We first heard about NIAC talking to Ariel Waldman. Her niacfellows.org site has some advice and encouragement for applying. Ariel was on Episode 255 of the show.
Elecia’s one-page overview of Curved-Crease Origami and Flex Circuitry for In-situ Planetary Science Sensor Arrays.
Feb 13, 2020
320: Why Isn't This Working?
Chris Gammell (@Chris_Gammell) of The Amp Hour and Contextual Electronics joined Christopher and Elecia to talk about firmware, learning, and books.
Chris is the host of The Amp Hour, a podcast about electronics and electrical engineering. Chris is also the founder of Contextual Electronics, where you can go to learn how to create electronics. Chris has a long running blog called Analog Life, found on his webpage chrisgammell.com,
Chris is learning firmware as part of his consulting business. He likes Elecia’s Making Embedded Systems book.
KiCon is happening at CERN in September 2020. More information at 2020.kicad-kicon.com.
We talked about Jay Carlson who was on Embedded talking about his Amazing $1 Microcontroller project (#226) and about teaching embedded systems (#303)
We talked about book club books:
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The Practicing Mind
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Draft No 4
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Drift into Failure
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The Science of Self-Learning
And a fun book series called Bobiverse (the Audible version is espe…
Feb 6, 2020
319: Squidly Tentacles
Chris (@stoneymonster) and Elecia (@logicalelegance) chat about the year 2038, their projects, their new finds, and future shows.
The year 2038 problem is real. Elecia read some of this tweet thread about it.
Single file libraries list on github: (https://github.com/nothings/single_file_libs), including the STB image handling library Chris was originally looking for.
Chris is working on a MIDI project with a NUCLEO-144 (STM32F303ZE) board and various breakout boards from Adafruit and Sparkfun.
Elecia talked about the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts Program (NIAC) and curved crease origami. She also talked about PID controllers and Tiny ML.
We are now soliciting sponsorship!
Jan 30, 2020
211: 4 weeks, 3 days (Repeat)
Dennis Jackson spoke with us about making the career shift from software to embedded.
Dennis buys James Grenning’s Test Driven Development in Embedded C for his new hires and often recommends Elecia’s Making Embedded Systems. His tip that everyone should know was “Learn make!” and he has a reference for that: Why Use Make.
He suggested Joel Spolsky’s reading lists from Joel On Software, even the ones that don’t obviously apply.
Additional suggested-reading articles:
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30 Pitfalls for Real Time Systems (part 1 and part 2)
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Rules for defensive C programming
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Why are you still using C
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What every computer scientist should know about floating point arithmetic
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The Power of Ten -- 10 Rules for Writing Safety Critical Code
In his previous appearance on Embedded (#94: Don’t Be Clever), we talked about code complexity and measuring cyclomatic complexity. At that time he wanted a tool to monitor the code’s status. He has since found one: pmccabe.
Jan 23, 2020
318: Amazed at How Things Are Amazing
Darryl Yong (@dyong) is a mathematics professor at Harvey Mudd College (and former classmate of ours, also at HMC). He is working with HMC’s Clinic Program, putting real industry projects in front of teams of college students. He’s also teaching number theory to prison inmates and helping teachers in the chronically underfunded Los Angeles Unified School District.
Darryl writes about his career in education at Adventures in Teaching (profteacher.com). You can read about his experiences with the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program.
If you dig into the archives a bit (2009) you can read about teaching at a high school, for example adapting teaching to different students. What he took away led him to create Math for America Los Angeles, a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing the number of secondary school mathematics and computer science teacher leaders in the greater Los Angeles Area.
Darryl’s personal page (darrylyong.com) and his HMC page (math.hmc.edu/~dyong). Al…
Jan 16, 2020
317: What Do You Mean by Disintegrated?
We were joined in the studio by the Evil Mad Scientists Lenore Edman (@1lenore) and Windell Oskay (@oskay).
Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories (@EMSL) produces the disintegrated 555 Timer kit and 741 Op-Amp kit. These were made in conjunction with Eric Schlaepfer, who also created the Monster 6502.
EMSL also makes the Eggbot kit and AxiDraw not-kit (and mini-kit). For a history of the pen plotter, check out Sher Minn’s Plotter People talk on YouTube.
(They have too many neat things to list here, go look on their page: https://shop.evilmadscientist.com/directory. Or stop into their Sunnyvale, California shop.)
We talked about the beauty of boards including Kong Money and ElectroCookie’s candy colored shields and Arduino Leonardo.
Jepson Herbarium has interesting workshops including one about seaweed. At one workshop, Lenore and Windell got to talk to Josie Iselin, author of The Curious World of Seaweed.
Elecia enjoyed Slime: How Algae Created Us, Plague Us, and Just Might Save Us…
Jan 9, 2020
316: Obviously Wasn't Obvious
Professor Barbara Liskov spoke with us about the Liskov substitution principle, data abstraction, software crisis, and winning a Turing Award.
See Professor Liskov’s page at MIT, including her incredible CV.
Jan 2, 2020
315: Trespassers William
Chris and Elecia talk with each other about non-work activities including music, office rearrangement, and origami.
The Solarbotics Squid Hunting CearouSol Kit
Samson S-patch plus 48-Point Balanced Patchbay
Waldorf Blofeld Synthesizer
EarthQuaker Devices Rainbow Machine V2 Polyphonic Pitch-shifting Modulator Pedal (with Magic knob)
Artelino is a Japanese print auction house
Dec 19, 2019
314: Why Are Wings Needed in Space?
Mohit Bhoite (@MohitBhoite) makes functional electronic sculptures from components and brass wire. We spoke with him on the hows and whys of making art.
Mohit’s sculptures, including the Tie Fighter. More on his instagram: mohitbhoite
Jiri Prause has a wonderful tutorial on how to make simpler freeform electronics on Instructables.
Peter Vogel is another artist making phenomenal freeform electronics.
Leonardo Ulian uses electronic components in his art (his don’t function but wow).
Advice from Mohit on trying this yourself from Bantam Tools. Mohit likes Xuron Pliers
Donate to DigitalNest by the end of 2019 and get your donation matched! Thank you to the listener who is doing the match!
Dec 12, 2019
313: Where the Paper Knows It Needs to Fold
Robert J. Lang spoke with us about origami, art, math, and lasers.
Robert has many origami books, here is a subset:
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Origami Design Secrets: Mathematical Methods for an Ancient Art (the one we talked about most, has the hummingbird crease pattern)
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Twists, Tilings, and Tessellations: Mathematical Methods for Geometric Origami (his new one, a textbook!)
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Origami in Action: Paper Toys That Fly, Flap, Gobble, and Inflate (not a theory book, just fun folds)
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Origami Sea Life (not mentioned but probably the book Elecia will be getting next)
Robert’s website langorigami.com is full of neat goodies:
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Gallery
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Origami design software including a pointer to the Origamizer by Tomohiro Tachi
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Crease patterns!
Suggested other books:
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Tomoko Fuse's Origami Boxes: Beautiful Paper Gift Boxes
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Origami to Astonish and Amuse by Jeremy Shafer
Origamido has a number of books. Robert uses Origamido paper but it is unobtanium to most people. Unless you are in Mai…
Dec 5, 2019
312: Two Meter Exhaust Port
Chris and Elecia talked through how security holes can get explored on a fictional product.
Thanks to an Embedded listener who enjoyed hearing from Jacob Martinez about helping young adults have access to technology, we have a grant to match donations to DigitalNEST up to $2500. Donate here: give.digitalnest.org/embeddedfm
We talked through OWASP Top 10 Embedded Application Best Practices but OWASP Internet of Things and OWASP Mobile Security are also very useful.
GREAT explanation of buffer overflow attacks by Coen Goedegebure
XKCD Little Bobby Tables
Nov 28, 2019
204: Abuse Electricity (Repeat)
Phoenix Perry (@phoenixperry) spoke with us about physical games. Phoenix is CTO of DoItKits (@DoItKits).
More about Phoenix:
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Bot Party
*
Her site: PhoenixPerry.com
*
She enjoyed Obelisk Gate by NK Jemisin
Physical games are sometimes called Alt Ctrl such as at the Alt Ctrl Game Jam.
Phoenix co-founded Code Liberation with Catt Small, Nina Freeman, and Jane Friedhoff. “Code Liberation catalyzes the creation of digital games and creative technologies by women, nonbinary, femme, and girl-identifying people to diversify STEAM fields.” There is an 8-part workshop in London in Summer 2017 (more info).
Some other interesting people:
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Lynne Bruning (http://etextilelounge.com/)
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Helen Steer (http://doitkits.com/)
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Perla Maiolino
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Rebecca Febrink
How to Get What You Want wearables site
Yoga Pants
AutoDesk Fusion360
I know you only read the show notes because you wanted this link: Velastat LessEMF has the supplies for ghost hunting!
Nov 21, 2019
311: Attack Other People's Refrigerators
Rick Altherr (@kc8apf) spoke with us about firmware security and mentoring.
Rick is a security researcher at Eclypsium. His personal website is kc8apf.net.
Rick’s deeply technical dive into reverse engineering car ECUs and FPGA bitstreams was on the Unnamed Reverse Engineering Podcast, episode 24. He also spoke with Chris Gammell The Amp Hour 357 about monitoring servers, many many servers.
Firmware security links:
*
STRIDE threat model
*
OWASP Top 10 Security Risks
*
OWASP IoT Firmware Analysis
*
OWASP Embedded Application Security Best Practices
*
Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures
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Elecia’s Device Security Checklist (wasn’t mentioned)
Thank you to our Embedded Patreon supporters, particularly to our corporate patron, InterWorking Labs (iwl.com).
Nov 14, 2019
310: While Loops Dressed up for Halloween
Aimee Lucido (@AimeeLucido) is a software engineer and children’s book author. Her first book is Emmy in the Key of Code about music, learning to code, and fitting in. We spoke with Aimee about writing, programming, publishing, and putting beautiful words together.
You can get a copy of Emmy in the Key of Code from Booksmith, IndieBound, Barnes & Noble, Target, or Amazon. The music playlist can be found in Google Play or Spotify.
Aimee’s website is aimeelucido.com. She also writes crossword puzzles for American Values Club and New Yorker.
Some other authors and books we talked about:
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The Crossover by Kwame Alexander
*
The Red Pencil by Andrea Davis Pinkney, illustrated by Shane W. Evans
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Pulitzer-prize winning Kendrick Lamar
After the show, I asked Aimee about resources for learning to read as a writer, she suggested looking at the KidLit Craft Blog.
Thank you to our Embedded Patreon supporters, particularly to our corporate patreon, InterWorking Labs (iwl.c…
Nov 7, 2019
309: Nature's Engineers
Pete Staples of Blue Clover Devices (bcdevices.com, @theiotodm) spoke with us about tools for manufacturing hardware.
Some posts and products from Blue Clover Devices:
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PLT Spec Sheet and ICT System
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How to write PLT Board Test Plans (using YAML)
*
PCB Design Tips and More PCB Design Tips
*
Flying Probe Testers in a Nutshell
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Zephyr - an OS for IoT
*
BC Devices github
Behind the scenes at factories:
*
Shenzhen Tena RT3188 HDMI Stick Factory Tour
*
Inside a PCB Soldering Factory - in China
Thank you to our Embedded Patreon supporters, particularly to our corporate patron, InterWorking Labs (iwl.com).
Oct 31, 2019
308: More Energy
Jacob Martinez (@jacobotech) spoke with Elecia about DigitalNEST (@DigiNEST), a non-profit devoted to giving high school and college age students access to technology, job training, and career development. DigialNEST is based in the agricultural communities of Salinas and Watsonville, CA.
Students who work through the course tracks at DigitalNEST can be invited to join the BizzNEST consulting group.
The conference we spoke of was NEST Flight (nestflight.org), held in September in Watsonville.
DigitalNEST is a non-profit and is accepting individual and corporate donations: digitalnest.org/donate/.
Oct 24, 2019
307: Big While Loop
Chris and Elecia explain when and why to use an operating system on a microcontroller (real-time or not).
Thank you to our Embedded Patreon supporters, particularly to our corporate patreon, InterWorking Labs (iwl.com).
Oct 17, 2019
306: What Is in the Magic Box?
Dr. Loretta Cheeks (@loretta_cheeks) spoke with us about implicit bias in text, machine learning, getting a PhD, and STEAM outreach via Strong Ties (strongtiesaz.org).
Also see:
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Loretta’s research on identifying implicit bias (The thumbnail image is from her work.)
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Lotetta’s TEDx talk on AI and remembering
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Yoshua Bengio wiki
Thank you to our Embedded Patreon supporters for Loretta’s mic, particularly to our corporate sponsor, InterWorking Labs (iwl.com).
Oct 3, 2019
305: Humans Have a Terrible Spec Sheet
Amanda “w0z” Wozniak (@kainzowa) spoke with us about her career through biomedical engineering and startups.
Amanda contributed a chapter to Building Open Source Hardware: DIY Manufacturing. (A book we spoke with Alicia Gibb about in #289.) Amanda’s chapter was titled Design Process: How to Get from Nothing to Something.
For more information about the companies we discussed, check out Amanda’s LinkedIn page.
Sep 26, 2019
304: ADC Channel Six
What do you get when you connect the open-source reverse engineer of Valve’s Steam Controller and the main electrical engineer of said device?
Jeff Keyzer (@mightyohm) and Gregory Gluszek (@greggersaurus) join us to talk about building and taking apart devices.
Greg’s project is on github as the OpenSteamController. He used pinkySim, an ARM simulator.
Jeff has left Valve and is now a freelance engineer as well as selling kits on mightyohm.com. The incredibly useful comic on how to solder lives there: mightyohm.com/soldercomic
I-Opener was the computer discussed.
Sep 19, 2019
303: Kids, Turn in Your Chips
Jay Carlson (@jaydcarlson) is back on the show to discuss education and the techniques he’s using to teach embedded systems.
Jay has some great posts on his jaycarlson.net blog. The one related to this show was entitled “How I Teach Embedded Systems.” Jay was also on Embedded 226: Camp AVR Vs. Camp Microchip where we discussed his fantastic survey of micros in The Amazing $1 Microcontroller. We also mentioned one of his recent posts about 3 cent micros.
Teaching has many different approaches. We talked about Bloom’s taxonomy and mentioned the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition.
Sep 12, 2019
51: There Is No Crying in Strcpy (Repeat)
Jen Costillo (@rebelbotjen) joins Elecia and Christopher to discuss their experiences interviewing (both as interviewer and interviewee).
Elecia did an hour long webinar on how to conduct technical interviews. In this show, she mentions a good post-interview ratings system.
Google discovered that their brainteasers are not a very effective way to interview.
Despite the news that swearing is good for you, we tried to bleep everything.
Also, it is minesweeper, not minefield. What were we thinking? It was obviously all Christopher’s fault. Though we should have stood up to him.
Elecia's book has more interview questions but from the perspective of how do you ask a question and what do you look for in a response.
Sep 5, 2019
302: Worst Book Ever
Christopher interviews an embedded systems engineer with ~25 years of experience across medical, scientific, industrial and consumer products. He asks about career trajectory, field stories, and assorted destruction.
Making Embedded Systems: Design Patterns for Great Software
Tony’s show about Kalman Filters was 43: A Lot of High-Falutin’ Math
Aug 29, 2019
301: Giant Novelty Check
Carter Frost spoke with us about the Cabrillo College Robotics club and winning the 2019 NASA Swarmathon.
Cabrillo has many student clubs. Cabrillo Robotics has a Facebook page and is @CabrilloRobotic on Twitter.
The club gets its funding from the Cabrillo Foundation (to donate, make sure to note “Cabrillo Robotics Club” in your contribution).
Please RSVP for the Embedded 300 party on Eventbrite.com.
Aug 22, 2019
300: Introverts Disperse!
Christopher and Elecia talk about the upcoming Embedded 300 party (Sept 7th!), podcasting, and listener emails.
Please RSVP for the party. If you didn’t hear the link in the show or don’t recall it, contact us. Thank you to iRobot for sending us Root Robots as prizes!
Embedded Patreon
Merchandise!
We send the Samson Meteor as our guest mic.
Thank you for listening!
Aug 15, 2019
299: Reasonably Foreseeable Misuse
Monk Eastman (@MonkFunkster) joined us for an enlightening conversation about hardware compliance engineering. We covered the basics of CE, FCC, UL, and battery certification.
We mentioned that Alan Cohen’s Prototype to Product: A Practical Guide for Getting to Market has a good overview of certification. Alan was on Embedded 269: Ultra-Precise Death Ray.
For a deeper view of compliance engineer, Monk suggested this book: Electrical Product Compliance and Safety Engineering.
Listener Skippy wrote about his experience with CE certification.
Monk plays bass saxophone in the East Bay Brass Band.
Details on registering for the Embedded 300 party on Eventbrite.com are in the show itself.
Aug 8, 2019
298: In the Cow Case
Eric Brunning (@deeplycloudy) returns to talk about doing science in the field in this crossover episode with the Don’t Panic GeoCast’s John Leeman (@geo_leeman).
Eric is a Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Texas Tech University specializing in storm electrification and lightning. We spoke with Eric on 268: Cakepan Interferometry about lightning and using baking goods as measurement devices. Eric was also on GeoCast 134: Launching Balloons out of a UHaul.
We spoke with John about his Phd research in 169: Sit on Top of a Volcano. The previous Don’t Panic GeoCast crossover was with John and Sridhar Anandakrishnan in 206: Crushing Amounts of Snow. John’s company is Leeman Geophysical.
The paper was Reconstructing David Huffman’s Legacy in Curved-Crease Folding by Erik D. Demaine, Martin L. Demaine and Duks Koschitz. Elecia is working her way through Erik Demaine’s Phd thesis on the same topic as well as Jun Mitani’s excellent book Curved-Folding Origami Design. Geo…
Aug 1, 2019
297: Mice to Do My Bidding
Chris Svec (@christophersvec) spoke to us about how hope can improve our software and work environments.
Chris is the author of Embedded Software Engineering 101 blog and has been on the show several times since his first appearance in 78: Happy Cows.
He mentioned Seth Godin’s Three Wishes post. We talked attentional focus and passing basketballs.
Details for the Embedded Cats and Hacks party are in the show. If you can’t attend, well, maybe you can still get a mug (zazzle). If you can attend, iRobot has graciously given us a couple Root robots that we’ll be giving away.
Jul 25, 2019
296: Train Me Later
Shruthi Jaganathan spoke with us about recycling, machine learning, and the Jetson Nano (@NVIDIAEmbedded).
More about the Green Machine, the computer vision, machine learning, augmented reality way to sort your lunch leavings. The code is available. The system was on a Jetson TX2 developer kit and Shruthi has been moving it to the physically smaller and only $99 Jetson Nano developer kit (buy).
Shruthi has been getting into AI with the Jetson Two Days to a Demo as well as NVIDIA’s free Getting Started with AI on the Jetson Nano online course.
For more information about FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC), we talked about it with Derek Fronek on Embedded 257: Small Parts Flew Everywhere.
Jul 18, 2019
295: In the Key of Lime
This week we talk about CircuitPython (@CircuitPython) with @adafruit’s Kattni Rembor (@kattni) and Scott Shawcroft (@tannewt).
The suggested first board is CircuitPlayground Express with LEDs, sensors, and buttons. CircuitPython is also available for many other boards including the BLE Feather (NRF52832).
For a basic introduction take a look at What is CircuitPython and see some example scripts. To dig a little deeper, check out the many resources in Awesome CircuitPython. The whole thing is open source so you can see their code. If you are thinking about contributing (or just want some fun chats), get in touch on the CircuitPython channel of the Adafruit Discord server: adafru.it/discord
Many of the language’s design choices favor ease-of-use over ready-for-production. Imagine teaching an intro to programming class without worrying what computers will be used or how to get compilers installed on everyone’s machines before time runs out.
One final note: Kattni did a p…
Jul 11, 2019
294: Ludicrous Numbers of LEDs
Mike Harrison (@mikelectricstuf) challenged us to a PIC fight on Twitter. Surprisingly, no blood was shed and we mostly talked about LEDs and art installations.
Mike’s YouTube Channel and his website electricstuff.co.uk
His professional hire-him-to-work-on-your-neat-stuff site is whitewing.co.uk
For driving LEDs, Mike likes the TI TLC5971: 12-Channel, 16-Bit ES-PWM RGB LED Driver with 3.3V Linear Regulator.
Mike will be at 2019 Hackaday SuperCon!
Jun 27, 2019
293: Skateboard Tricks
Limor Fried of Adafruit spoke with us about engineering, education, and business.
Some new boards we talked about include the PyGamer and PyBadge (which also has a lower cost version).
TinyUSB, an open and tiny USB stack from Hathach.
In addition to the many excellent tutorials there are some interesting business related posts on Adafruit Learn: How to Build a Hardware Startup and How to Start a Hackerspace
Want to get more involved with the extensive, wonderful, and supportive Adafruit community? Join their Discord chat server or Show and Tell on Wednesdays 7:30pm (ET) followed by Ask an Engineer at 8pm.
Jun 20, 2019
292: Now I Feel Less Cool
Christopher (@stoneymonster) and Elecia (@logicalelegance) babble about their current projects involving ants, guitars, machine learning, and party planning.
A video of Christopher’s ants
Some tweet threads about our tour of Santa Cruz Guitar Company.
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Arrival (also: very old wood)
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Wood is awesome
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Adding science to precision craft
Elecia has been reading Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn, Keras, and TensorFlow by Aurélien Géron. While the 2nd edition preview is on O’Reilly’s electronic library (formerly Safari Online), it will be available via Amazon on July 5th. Or pick up the first edition.
Phillip Johnston of Embedded Artistry (290: Rule of Thumbs) is looking for blog posts, exchanging editing and exposure for posts that make sense on the site. Contact him with a topic idea before jumping in. For the Embedded blog, related to the show with Phillip, Elecia wrote a post about learning to give feedback.
Listener Brian asked about a CS degree for…
Jun 13, 2019
291: General Drip and Tinkle
Karl Auerbach of InterWorking Labs spoke with us about how the internet works.
We talked about domain name services (DNS being the primary one), registries and registrars, domain thieves, and the History of the Internet project.
Karl runs his own (non-DNS) domain name service on his site www.cavebear.com. The site also includes notes from his time on the ICANN board (such as this one where they talk about redemption periods).
Jun 6, 2019
290: Rule of Thumbs
We spoke with Phillip Johnston (@mbeddedartistry) of Embedded Artistry about embedded consulting, writing about software, and ways to improve development.
In the Embedded Artistry welcome page, there is a list of Phillip’s favorite articles as well as his most popular articles. Some of Phillip’s favorites include:
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Embedded Rules of Thumb
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Improving SW with 5 LW Processes
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Learning from the Boeing 737 MAX saga
We also talked about code reviews and some best practices.
The Embedded Artistry newsletter is a good way to keep up with embedded topics. You can subscribe to it at embeddedartistry.com/newsletter
What are condition variables?
May 30, 2019
289: Stamping HORSE on Zebras
Alicia Gibb (@pipix) joined Elecia to talk about open source hardware, the OSHW association (@ohsummit), using trademarks for quality control, and light-up LEGO blocks.
Alicia is the editor and author of Building Open Source Hardware: DIY Manufacturing for Hackers and Makers. It is a handy resource for any manufacturing.
Alicia is the director of the Blow Things Up Lab, part of the Atlas Institute at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Light up LEGO blocks are available at Build Upons.
The LilyPad Arduino has many sewable electronics components.
You can find more talks and hacks on Alicia’s personal site, aliciagibb.com.
May 9, 2019
288: You Got a Screen!
Christopher (@stoneymonster) and Elecia (@logicalelegance) discuss embedded systems education and project documentation.
Elecia wrote about her love of notebooks on the https://www.embedded.fm/blog-index.
yEd, for when you don’t have Visio. Asciiflow.com, for when you don’t have yEd (or you want to put diagrams in your comments)
We talked about many different documents and tried to note design vs implementation, product vs engineering vs user, and why we wanted them. We didn’t mention mechanical things because, ya know, software engineers. Some documentation we mentioned:
*
Product documentation
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Schematics with block diagrams and comments. Also a GPIO to function spreadsheet.
*
UI flow when the system has a screens (Balsamiq for wireframe testing UIs)
*
SW spec and design doc: what do we plan to build and what are the tricky parts
*
SW configuration and SW developer docs: how to rebuild the computer that can build the code from scratch, also notes on debuggin…
May 2, 2019
187: Self-Driving Arm (Repeat)
Crossing machine intelligence, robotics, and medicine, Patrick Pilarski (@patrickpilarski) is working on smart prosthetic limbs.
Build your own learning robot references: Weka Data Mining Software in Java for getting to know your data, OpenIA Gym for understanding reinforcement learning algorithms, Robotis Servos for the robot (AX is the lower priced line), and five lines of code:
Patrick even made us a file (with comments and everything!).
Once done, you can enter the Cybathlon. (Or check out a look at Cybathlon 2016 coverage.)
Machine Man by Max Barry
Snow Country by Bokushi Suzuki
Aimee Mullins and her many amazing legs (TED Talk)
Patrick is a professor at University of Alberta, though a lot more than that: he is the Canada Research Chair in Machine Intelligence for Rehabilitation at the University of Alberta, and Assistant Professor in the Division of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and a principal investigator with both the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (…
Apr 25, 2019
287: Joke With No Punchline
Kate Compton (@GalaxyKate) spoke with us about casual creators, Twitter bots done cheap and quick, and the creativity that is within each of us.
Kate’s website is galaxykate.com. Her Phd dissertation defense is interesting, see it on youtube.com. She is joining UCSC’s CROSS to do more work on casual creators and open source software. (We talked to Carlos Maltzan, the head of CROSS in 285: A Chicken Getting to the Other Side.)
Tracery is an open source story generator using a specific grammar. One example is at Kate’s BrightSpiral.com which creates a whole story every time you refresh.
You can use Tracery to make Twitter bots via CheapBotsDoneQuick.com. They are often text (@infinite_scream, @str_voyage, @DUNSONnDRAGGAN) or emoji based (@choochoobot, @infinitedeserts). However, Tracery and CBDQ can be used to create SVG images (such as @softlandscapes).
Elecia’s text bot is @pajamaswithfeet. It tweets (usually) kind things you can (sometimes) say to other people (or yourse…
Apr 18, 2019
286: Twenty Cans of Gas
Colin O’Flynn (@colinoflynn) spoke with us about security research, power analysis, and hotdogs.
Colin’s company is NewAE and you can see his Introduction to Side-Channel Power Analysis video as an intro to his training course. Or you can buy your own ChipWhisperer and go through his extensive tutorials on the wiki pages.
ChipWhisperer on Hackaday
ColinOFlynn.com
Some FPGA resource mentioned:
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Fpga4fun.com
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TinyFpga.com
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MyHdl.org (Python!)
Apr 11, 2019
285: A Chicken Getting to the Other Side
Carlos Maltzahn joined us to talk about graduate studies in open source software, research incubators, and how software development tools can be used to aid the reproduction of scientific results.
Carlos is the founder and director of the Center for Research in Open Source Software (CROSS). He is also an adjunct professor of computer science and engineering at UC Santa Cruz.
Some projects we spoke about:
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Jeff LeFevre — Skyhook: using programmable storage in Ceph to make Postgres and other databases more scalable and elastic (skyhookdm.com)
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Ivo Jimenez — Black Swan: using DevOps techniques and strategies to speed up the systems research delivery life cycle (falsifiable.us)
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Kate Compton — Tracery2 and Chancery: using open source software to support artists and poets (tracery.io)
Apr 4, 2019
284: Honking Big Asparagus
Ori Bernstein (@oribernstein) joined us to talk about the dielectric constants of foods, reflective energy steering, and smart microwaves. Elecia got a little silly.
Ori works at Level Hot Pantry for more about the smart microwave, check out his !!ConWest talk. Ori has a github and personal site.
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EMSL papadum testing (where our thumbnail came from, with permission)
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Hackaday explained recently why grapes explode
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Short intro to how a microwave works
Mar 28, 2019
283: Flippendo Is Kind of a Swirly
Jennifer Wang (@jenbuilds) spoke with us about machine learning, magic wands, and getting into hardware.
For more detail about her magic wand build, you can see Jen’s Hackaday SuperCon talk or her !!ConWest talk. The github repo is well documented with pointers to slides from her SuperCon talk and an HTML version of her Jupyter notebook.
Check out this good introduction to machine learning from scikit-learn. It was their choosing the right estimator infographic we were looking at. (Elecia has bookmarked this list of machine learning cheat sheets.)
Jennifer’s personal sites are jenbuilds.com and jewang.net. She recommends the Recurse Center and wrote a blog post on her experience there.
Mar 21, 2019
282: Tin Can Through a Wet Noodle
We spoke with Laughlin Barker of OpenROV (@OpenROV) about underwater drones, underwater navigation, underwater exploration of the Antarctic, and extraordinarily large (underwater) jellyfish.
Watch this video of a Trident ROV being eaten by a shark… yes, you get to see the inside of a shark.
S.E.E. Initiative: Science Exploration Education from National Geographic
Laughlin left us with a coupon code for the Trident ROV. Please remember to invite us along on your ROV’ing.
Mar 14, 2019
281: Tame Geek
Combining a love of engineering with a love of words, Jenny List (@Jenny_Alto) is a contributing editor at Hackaday (@Hackaday).
Jenny’s writing at Hackaday including Debunking the Drone Versus Plane Hysteria and Ooops, Did We Just Close An Airport Over a UFO Sighting?
Previously Jenny worked for Oxford English Press working on computational linguistics software. While there she wrote post about the word “hacker”.
Elecia has been secretly dreaming of being a lexicographer since reading Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper.
Mar 7, 2019
280: Reginald P. Theodore Johnson
Chris (@stoneymonster) and Elecia (@logicalelegance) talk about design patterns, conferences, and Molotov cocktails.
Wrapper / Decorator / Facade
Observer aka subscriber/publisher (caveat)
Delegation and Dependency Injection
Model View Controller (very important if somewhat dated UI pattern)
PyFlakes is a static Python checker
KiCAD Conference is in Chicago on April 26-27, 2019
BangBangConWest 2019 is over but the videos will be up soon including the one Elecia noted about liking things (which was done by Lynn Cyrin).
Embedded.fm Patreon
Feb 28, 2019
162: I Am a Boomerang Enthusiast (Repeat)
Valve's Alan Yates (@vk2zay) spoke with us about the science and technology of virtual reality.
Elecia looked at the iFixIt Teardown of the HTC Vive system as she was unwilling to take apart Christopher's system.
Alan shared some of his other favorite reverse engineering efforts: Doc OK’s Lighthouse videos, documentation on github by nairol, and a blog by Trammell Hudson.
Alan's sensor circuit diagrams were on twitter: SparkleTree sensor circuit (think simplified) and the closer-to-production Lighthouse sensor.
Make Magazine talked about Valve's R&D Lab. This is important in case you want to work at Valve (they are currently hiring for EE but if that doesn't describe you and you want to work there, apply anyway).
Alan also has a website (vk2zay.net) though it doesn't see much updating right now.
Feb 21, 2019
279: Top Pedant
Patrick Yeon (@patyeon) spoke with us about nonprofit spaceships then asked our opinions about embedded software.
Pat is working for something something nonprofit space something something. To fill in some of the blanks, apply for a job on NonprofitSpaceship.org.
Pat was previously on episode 153: Space Nerf Gun when we talked about cost-optimized satellites.
We talked about several books:
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Turn the Ship Around! A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders by L. David Marquet
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Managers Path: Leaders Navigating Growth and Change by Camille Fournier
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Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software by Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and John Vlissides
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Head First Design Patterns: A Brain-Friendly Guide by Eric Freeman, Elisabeth Robson, Bert Bates, Kathy Sierra
Elecia’s command code is on github.
Feb 14, 2019
278: Bricks’ Batteries Last Forever
Matthew Liberty (@mliberty1) shared good advice for lowering power. We talk about different ways to measure current (Matt has a nice write-up) and things software can do to decrease power consumption.
Sleeping is critical, of course, as is choosing your clock speed and setting the GPIOs to good states. Everything is fine until you start getting into the microamps, then your multimeter measurements may start to fail you. (EEvblog explains why in his uCurrent intro.)
Eventually, you may want to measure nanoamp sleep states along with amp-consuming wake states. Matt’s Joulescope is a tool to do just that (Kickstarter goes live Feb 19, 2019!), automatically moving between 9 orders of magnitude of dynamic range and graphing the results on your computer.
Matthew’s consulting company is JetPerch.
We mentioned Colin O’Flynn’s ChipWhisperer which uses differential power analysis for security attacks. We also talked about Jacob Beningo’s post on protecting your tools.
Elecia is g…
Feb 7, 2019
277: The Sport of Kings
Jie Qi (@qijie) spoke with us about making paper-based electronics (@Chibitronics) and learning about patent law (via @Patentpandas).
Jie Qi is the founder of Chibitronics, a crafting electronics platform that uses paper and stickers to create (and teach) circuits. Building the company and working on electronics-filled pop-up books led to the realization that patent law does apply to open source maker-type companies. She started PatentPandas.org to share what she’s learned.
Jie is not the only one who has had issues with big companies patenting their open source work. We mentioned Jarek Duda and his fight to keep his compression algorithm unburdened by patents.
If you are having or wondering about having an issue, Patent Pandas is intended to be an amusing and gentle introduction. If you are looking for prior art, you can look at the Prior Art Archive and Patents.StackExchange. (If you have some free time, there are often requests to find prior art.)
If you are a maker wanting t…
Jan 31, 2019
276: Playing a Song on a Potato
Jesse Rutherford (@BentTronics) gave us an in-depth look at the 555 timer IC (wiki).
Jesse runs Bent-tronics.com and wrote The Ultimate Beginner's Guide to the 555 Timer (Amazon).
Some great 555 projects:
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555 Decimal Adding Machine
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555 found in a drill trigger speed controller as seen on the Ben Heck Show
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555 found inside a solar charger controller, video by Julian Ilett
Somehow, despite it being in the plan, we didn’t mention the Evil Mad Scientist The Three Fives Kit: A Discrete 555 Timer which builds a 555 Timer out of discrete parts. If only the creator would come on to talk about it and his other cool projects. Note that EMS also has a great description of how the 555 timer works.
The giveaway is Jesse’s book and the components to build the projects in his book.
Jan 24, 2019
275: Don’t Do What the Computer Tells You
Janelle Shane (@JanelleCShane) shared truly weird responses from AIs. Her website is AIWeirdness.com where you can find machine-learning-generated ideas for paint colors, ice cream, and cocktails (and many other things). We never said they were good ideas.
Janelle’s FAQ will help you get started trying out RNNs yourself. We recommend the Embedded show titles.
We talked about BigGAN which generates pictures based on input images.
Wikipedia list of animals by number of neurons
Janelle’s upcoming book is You Look Like a Thing and I Love You. Sign up for her newsletter to be the first to order it (as well as getting the PG-13 versions of her hilarious AI outputs).
Jan 17, 2019
274: Swiss Knife of Embedded Systems
Ivan Kravets (@ikravets) spoke with us about PlatformIO (@PlatformIO_Org), IDEs, embedded libraries, and RISC-V.
PlatformIO is an editor, an integrated development environment with debugging and unit testing, and/or a library index. Its goal is to make embedded development easier and more consistent across host operating systems and development hardware. It is also a .org because the goal is to make all of this open source and free to engineers.
Ivan Kravets is the founder of PlatformIO.org. Personal site, Github, LinkedIn, and a neat interview. He recommends seeing the Dnieper River if you are in his area.
Ivan recently attended the RISC-V Summit. RISC-V is an open source processor core (like ARM but open source). SiFive was mentioned as one of the RISC-V processor vendors. RISC-V is being used extensively in research. Western Digital is planning to develop RISC-V based controllers. And MIPS recently joined RISC-V.
Jan 10, 2019
273: Off the Topic of My Jammies
Chris and Elecia chat with each other about the new year. All is fine until she starts quizzing him about some language details of his new project.
Many object-oriented resources suggest using composition (has-a) over inheritance (is-a-type-of) (wiki). Where do swift extensions fit in? It seems to me (Elecia here) that extension is invisible composition that allows adding of functions.
For example, say you want a TiltSensor and you already have an ImuSensor object so you need to add a function for TiltComputation.
You could make the TiltSensor contain an ImuSensor (composition). You call the ImuSensor functions to check the readings when running TiltComputation function. You don’t need to know what is in ImuSensor, only what the API is.
You could have TiltSensor be a child class of ImuSensor (inheritance) so that TiltSensor responds to all ImuSensor functions as well as its new TiltComputation function. You could use the variables in ImuSensor directly for TiltCompulation but you…
Dec 27, 2018
272: Stick ‘Em on Whales
Chris Gammell (@Chris_Gammell) of The Amp Hour (@TheAmpHour) joined us to talk about the state of the industry, listeners, guests, and life in general.
Embedded’s accounting episode (150: Sad Country Song)
Contextual Electronics Consulting forum (requires you to apply)
Remote work
250: Yolo Snarf
Excellent video on how prototype PCBs have improved over the years
Quickly falling cost of dev boards
Elecia worked on learning and building robots and happily got a related job
Chris W is building IOS apps
Object oriented
Prototype to Product: A Practical Guide for Getting to Market by Alan Cohen (Emebdded.fm interview)
CircuitPython
Visual Basic as a prototyping language
ESP32 and EXP8266 longevity and use in products
WiFi provisioning
Electric Imp, Particle.io
Azure IoT Hub, AWS IoT, Google Cloud Iot, Ubidots, and IoT App Story (the one Chris G remembered later)
Wallet.fail
Anki Vector robot
Genuine People Personality (from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)
Genuine…
Dec 20, 2018
271: Shell Scripts for the Soul
Alex Glow (@glowascii) filled our heads with project ideas.
Alex is the Resident Hardware Nerd at Hackster.io. Her page is glowascii and you might want to see Archimedes the AI robot owl and the Hardware 101 channel. They have many sponsored contests including BadgeLove.
Lightning round led us to many possibles:
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It you were building an IoT stuffed animal, what would you use? Mycroft and Snips are what is inside Archimedes.
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If you were building a camera to monitor a 3d printer, what would you use? For her M3D Micro Printer, Alex would use the Raspberry Pi based OctoPi to monitor it.
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If you were going to a classroom of 2nd graders, what boards would you take? The BBC Micro:bit (based on Code Bug) or some LittleBits kits (Star Wars Droid Inventor Kit and Korg Synth Kit are on Amazon (those are Embedded affiliate links, btw).
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If you were going to make a car-sized fighting robot, what dev system would you use? The Open Source Novena DIY Laptop initially designed Bunn…
Dec 13, 2018
270: Broccoli Is Good Too
James Grenning (@jwgrenning) joined us to talk about Test Driven Development, dealing with legacy code, and cleaning out very large pipes.
James is the author of Test Driven Development for Embedded C. If you want to take his live online course, check out the remote delivered TDD classes on Wingman Software. His blog has many great articles including TDD How-to: Get Your Legacy C into a Test Harness and TDD Guided by ZOMBIES.
Book: Working Effectively with Legacy Code by Michael Feathers
James mentioned Given-When-Then, a testing design pattern (brief intro). Kent Beck also wrote about test && commit || revert style testing.
James and Bob Martin present IoT implementation strategies in a series of videos on Clean Coders. James mentioned working with a Synapse Wireless radio.
Dec 6, 2018
269: Ultra-Precise Death Ray
Alan Cohen (@proto2product) wrote a great book about taking an idea and making it into a product. We spoke with him about the development process and the eleven deadly sins of product development. We did not talk about ultra-precise death rays.
Books we discussed:
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Alan’s Prototype to Product: A Practical Guide for Getting to Market
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Elecia’s Making Embedded Systems
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The Mythical Man-Month, Anniversary Edition: Essays On Software Engineering by Frederick P. Brooks Jr.
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The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change by Camille Fournier
Alan mentioned writing software graphically with Enterprise Architect
Nov 29, 2018
164: Heatsink in a Shoebox (Repeat)
Christopher White resurrects an Apple ][+ with his brother Matthew White. This is a show about the software Christopher and Matthew wrote when they were kids and the hardware they wrote it on.
Matthew's favorite fictional robot (we should have asked): Venus Probe from Six Million Dollar Man. We did ask about his favorite fictional computer and there is a video for that too.
Apple ][+ Wiki
Timex Sinclair Z81 Wiki
Eric Schlaepfer's Monster 6502
Grant's 6502 Computer
Kerbal Space Program for the Apple ][
Elecia got to $42 in Lemonade Stand by the end of the show
Matthew's Nebula Wars and Eye of Eternal Death BASIC games circa 1982 and 1981 respectively.
If you feel like it, you can try out an Apple ][ in your web browser, with tons of disks available at the Internet Archive or in a Javascript Emulator.
Elecia's book is Making Embedded Systems.
Nov 15, 2018
268: Cakepan Interferometry
After many bouts of lightning round, we finally got our lightning questions answered by Eric Brunning (@deeplycloudy). Eric is a Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Texas Tech University specializing in storm electrification and lightning .
You can hear some of Eric’s field adventures by listening to his episode of the Don’t Panic Geocast show.
The Wikipedia page for lightning will lead you down many strange pathways. Though the Wikipedia Lightning Energy Harvesting page may convince you that it isn’t feasible (though some math might as well, as discussed on this show).
For more about lightning interferometry, check out Michael Stock’s in-depth site.
You can hear lightning on Jupiter if you listen to the right bands.
Neat video of the Milky Way in radio waves reflecting off the moon
Elecia really enjoyed The Cloudspotter’s Guide by Gavin Pretor-Pinney.
Nov 8, 2018
267: Cute and Squishy
Lindsey Kuper (@lindsey) spoke with us about !!Con West, being a new professor, and reading technical journals.
The call for speakers for !!Con West is open until November 30, 2018. The conference will be in Santa Cruz, CA on February 23-24.
Lindsey’s blog is Composition.al and it has advice for !!Con proposals, advice for potential grad students, and updates on Lindsay’s work.
The Banana Slug is the UCSC mascot.
Time, Clocks, and the Ordering of Events in a Distributed System by Leslie Lamport, 1978
Nov 1, 2018
266: Drive off the End of the Universe
Chris (@stoneymonster) and Elecia (@logicalelegance) talk about conferences, simulations, and future episodes.
Simulation/Emulation: QEMU and Renode. Chris also noted there were QEMU for STM32 instances such as this one from beckus.
For conferences, we named several but had no particularly useful advice. We did recommend classes such as James Grenning’s training on TDD in Embedded Systems and Jack Ganssle’s Better Firmware Faster.
There are several (free) machine learning courses available from Udacity including Intro to Machine Learning which was part of the Self-Driving Car series that Elecia took.
The future basics episodes were grouped into:
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Flow of program control (pre-RTOS)
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Design patterns
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RTOS information
Oct 25, 2018
265: What’s Your Superpower
Anita Pagin gave us an insider’s view of being a recruiter.
Anita recently started at Carbon3D and is recruiting for software and hardware.
Anita also does career coaching on the side. Given the advice she gave us for free, imagine what she could tell you if you paid her.
Finally, Elecia’s favorite list of resume keywords.
Oct 18, 2018
264: Do It for the Herd
Chris Svec (@christophersvec) returns to chat about recruiting for embedded jobs and to help us answer listener questions. Also, he’s looking for engineers to join him at iRobot.
Want to get into embedded and don’t know how? We did a show about that: 211: 4 Weeks, 3 Days. Also, there is an EdX class that is popular and a Coursera course that may be useful.
You can meet up with Chris at Hackaday Supercon in Pasadena, CA on Nov 2-4.
Fulgurites are cooled lightning.
Oct 12, 2018
109: Resurrection of Extreme Programming (Repeat)
James Grenning (@jwgrenning) returns to discuss TDD, Agile, and web courses.
James was on Embedded.fm episode 30: Eventually Lighting Strikes.
James' new company is Wingman Software.
His excellent book is TDD for Embedded C.
James suggested Training From the Back of the Room! as resource to people looking to put together a class. He uses and recommends CyberDojo as a coding instruction tool.
Before Agile was Agile-for-business, it was Extreme Programming. James recommends Extreme Programming Explained.
James will be the keynote speaker at AgileDC in October.
Oct 4, 2018
263: Experience the Theory
Professor Angela Sodemann of @ASU spoke with us about new ways of teaching, robotics, and haptic displays.
Angela’s robotics courses can be found at RoboGrok.com, including the parts kit. Note that they focus on creating usable robotics as well as teaching theory so there is math, code, and hardware.
Sep 27, 2018
262: Egg Freckles
Noah Leon made a film: Love Notes to Newton. It features the people who love and the people who built the Apple Newton. We spoke with him about the Newton and about filmmaking.
Noah runs Moosefuel Media. He wanted to mention Frank Orlando of OrlandoMedia, the art designer for the film and promotional material. Profits from Love Notes to Newton go to Be The Match, a registry of bone marrow donors.
You can sign up for the Newton mailing list at NewtonTalk.net. The book about the Newton development is Defying Gravity: The Making of Newton by Markos Kounalakis. The documentary about Compaq is Silicon Cowboys (Netflix).
Doonesbury comic">
Sep 21, 2018
261: Blowing Their Fragile Little Minds
Helen Leigh (@helenleigh) is an author, education writer and maker. She spoke with us about making learning fun (and subversive).
Her latest book is The Crafty Kid's Guide to DIY Electronics, out in November 2018.
The instrument gloves were the mi.mu (full version) and the mini.mu DIY kit (coming soon to Pimoroni and Adafruit). The mini.mu uses the BBC Micro:bit.
Helen worked on earlier books including Mission Explore from the Geography Collective. These are out of print but still obtainable (and may be in your local library).
She recommends the book The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine. For meeting people in education and technology, Helen is looking forward to the next EMF Camp. As far as tech and education conferences, the BETT trade show is interesting.
We mentioned “Phoenix” a few times, that is Phoenix Perry who was on episode 204: Abuse Electricity.
Sep 13, 2018
260: We Talked a Lot
Christopher (@stoneymonster) and Elecia (@logicalelegance) talks about vacations for learning and hobbies then answered listener questions.
Chris’ toys include the Prusa I3 Mk3 and the UAD Arrow.
Elecia likes Camille Fournier’s book, The Manager’s Path. She also got to plug her own book, Making Embedded Systems: Design Patterns for Great Software.
Pacific spiny lumpsucker (Eumicrotremus orbis) at the Seymour Science Center
Sep 6, 2018
259: Calculators Changed My Life
Brandon Wilson (@brandonlwilson) shared his stories about hacking TI calculators (and other things).
TICalc.org has the latest on getting started yourself including Z80 assemblers, or start on Brandon’s website: brandonw.net
Bradon will be speaking at Hardwear.io, a security conference for the hardware and security community. The conference consists of training (11th - 12th Sept 2018) and conference (13th - 14th Sept 2018). It is in The Hague, Netherlands. His talk is The Race to Secure Texas Instruments Graphing Calculators. He will also be hosting a village called Dumping the ROM of the Most Secure Sega Genesis Game Ever Created.
Topics:
00:00:00 Introduction
00:00:33 Brandon Wilson
00:01:39 Lightning Round
00:02:37 Calculators!
00:03:58 Programmable calculators, using TI BASIC
00:05:00 Ti-85, programmable via assembly language
00:06:35 App store for my calculator?
00:07:34 How does TI prevent cheating?
00:09:41 Testguard for teachers
00:12:53 Some are WiFi capable
0…
Aug 30, 2018
258: Security Is Another Dimension
We spoke with Axel Poschmannof DarkMatter LLC(@GuardedbyGenius) about embedded security.
For a great in-depth introduction, Axel suggested Christof Paar’s Introduction to Cryptography class, available on YouTube. We also talked about ENISA’s Hardware Threat Landscape and Good Practices Guide.
Axel will be speaking at Hardwear.io, a security conference for the hardware and security community. The conference consists of training (11th - 12th Sept 2018) and conference (13th - 14th Sept 2018). It is in The Hague, Netherlands.
DarkMatter is hiring.
Elecia has some discount coupons for the Particle.io Spectra conference.
Aug 23, 2018
257: Small Parts Flew Everywhere
Derek Fronek spoke with us about FIRST robotics. His TechHOUNDS (@TechHOUNDS868) team is based in Carmel, Indiana. They won the state competition and placed 5th in the high school FRC championship.
Derek mentioned the roboRIO controller board, TalonSRX speed controller, and the Spark motor controller. Many of these offer deep discounts to FIRST robotics participants.
Check out FirstInspires.org to find a team near you. The game comes out in January but many teams start forming in September.
Derek’s personal website includes his other projects and a way to contact him.
Sparkfun has an autonomous vehicle competition, this is their 10th year.
Elecia wrote a related blog post for Derek, a few notes about media training.
Music for after you finish the episode
Aug 16, 2018
256: Agglomeration
Chris (@stoneymonster) and Elecia (@logicalelegance) celebrate the 256th episode with a confusing lack of cupcakes.
IAmTheCalvary.org has an excellent Hippocratic Oath for Connected Medical Devices
Make Magazine has some tips to tighten security on DIY IoT Projects.
Rockstar Language Specification (and FizzBuzz example)
The C++ episode discussed was #247 with Jason Turner.
Topics and Times:
00:00 Zero
00:27 Intro and cupcakes
03:09 Patreon and Slack
04:24 Transcripts, chapter markers?
07:48 Listener question: ST HAL, Cube, SPL, Bare Metal?
14:22 Hippocratic Oath for Connected Medical Devices
19:32 Make magazine article on DIY IoT Security
22:36 NYC Embedded and Engineering Meetup?
23:42 C++: Expressiveness, optimization vs. good code
30:21 C++: Spec size vs. C#/Java
32:22 A question of parentheses leads to mild violence and ranting
35:43 Rockstar: The Language!
43:59 Wherein we "discuss" Rust for some reason, again.
46:45 Elecia's Projects in Python and JSON
50:18 E…
Aug 9, 2018
255: Jellyfish Are Pretty Badass
Ariel Waldman (@arielwaldman) spoke with us about how science, art, and all of the other disciplines can build a better world.
Ariel does many amazing things, it is hard to list them all.
* Homepage: arielwaldman.com
* YouTube: arielwaldman
* Science Hack Day: sciencehackday.org and Twitter @ScienceHackDay
* Space Hack directory of ways to get involved: spacehack.org
* Patreon page: arielwaldman
* Book: What's It Like in Space?: Stories from Astronauts Who've Been There
* NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts council, look at niacfellows.org to apply.
Ariel fell in love with NASA while watching the When We Left Earth miniseries.
Aug 2, 2018
254: Murdering Thousands of Gnomes
Gabriel Jacobo (@gabrieljacobo) spoke with us about embedded graphics, contributing to the Linux SDL, using MQTT, and working far from his employers.
Gabriel’s blogand resumeare available on his site mdqinc.com. His github repo is under gabomdq.
SDL is Simple DirectMedia Layer (wiki). It is not so simple.
For MQTT-based home automation, he uses the Raspberry Pi Home Assistantbuild and many Node MCUs(ESP8266s running Lua, Micropython, or Arduino Framework).
Jul 27, 2018
41: Pink Universes Die Really Quickly (Repeat)
Micah Elizabeth Scott (@scanlime) came to talk about Fadecandy, a really neat way to control smart LEDs (NeoPixel, AdaFruit's term for the WS2812). The conversation ranged from beautiful LED control algorithms and open source embedded projects to triangle tessellations, art, and identity.
AdaFruit has a great intro to Fadecandy.
Fadecandy is open source hardware and software, see the repository.
Micah's blog is a combo of art and technology.
Burning Man's Ardent Mobile Cloud (also a lovely still pic).
Elecia also mentioned Deep Darc's hack of the GE Color Effects lights.
Jul 20, 2018
10: Hands Off, Baby (Repeat)
Jen Costillo (@rebelbotjen) joins Elecia White to discuss the secret parts of C, keywords that only embedded software engineers seem to know about.
Jen and Elecia talk about interviewing and why these keywords make good questions for finding folks who use the language to its full potential. On the show they mention a list of embedded interview questions with answers. (Note: Elecia's book has many excellent interview questions and what interviewers look for when they ask them.)
Producer Christopher White sends along a more concise introduction to the often unused register keyword.
NOTE: This is a repeat episode from before we'd settled on our name. Note that Jen is the co-host of the Unnamed Reverse Engineering Podcast.
Jul 12, 2018
253: We’ll Pay Them in Fun
We spoke with Kathleen Tuite (@kaflurbaleen) about augmented reality, computer vision, games with a purpose, and meetups.
Kathleen’s personal site (filled with many interesting projects we didn’t talk about) is SuperFireTruck.com.
Kathleen works for GrokStyle, a company that lets you find furniture you like based on what you see. GrokStyle is used in the Augmented Reality try-it-at-home IKEA Place app.
* Theory of Fun for Game Designby Raph Koster
* Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experienceby Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
* Language translating/learning app and online game is Duolingo
* TensorFlow in Javascript
* HCOMP 2018: Human Computer Conference with Keynote by Zooniverse’s Lucy Fortson(no video for that yet but we hope)
Jul 5, 2018
252: A Good Heuristic for Pain Tolerance
Katie Malone (@multiarmbandit) works in data science, has podcast about machine learning, and has a Phd in Physics. We mostly talked about machine learning, ways to kill people, mathematics, and impostor syndrome.
Katie is the host of the Linear Digressionspodcast (@LinDigressions). She recommended the Linear Digressions interview with Matt Mightas something Embedded listeners might enjoy. Katie and Ben also recently did a show about git.
Katie taught Udacity’s Intro to Machine Learningcourse (free!). She also recommends the Andrew Ng Machine Learning Coursera course.
Neural nets can be fooled in hilarious ways: Muffins vs dogs, Labradoodles vs chicken, and more. Intentional, adversarial attacks are also possible.
Impostor syndromeis totally a thing. We’ve talked about it before. You might recognize the discussion methodology from Embedded #24: I’m a Total Fraud.
Katie works at Civis Analyticsand they are hiring.
Jun 28, 2018
251: I Agreed at the Time
This week, we spoke with Addie (@atdiy) and Whisker (@whixr), the Toymakers (@Tymkrs).
Their latest CypherCon badges included a complete phone system. For more information, check out the user documentation at hackthebadge.com or the related Reddit post.
There is a video of Joe Grand’s 2018 CypherCon talk if you’d like to watch him talk about his juvenile delinquency.
In our last episode with Addie and Whisker (#205), we talked about the CypherCon 2017 badges and their Tindie store.
Tindie module for phone
The "Drew" mentioned is Drew Fustini (@pdp7). Though only Whisker supports accosting him to talk about OSH Park board colors.
Jun 21, 2018
250: Yolo Snarf
Finally! An episode with version control! And D&D! Chris Svec (@christophersvec) joins us to discuss why version control is critical to professional software development and what the most important concepts are.
T-Shirts are on sale for a limited time: US distributor and EU distributor.
You can read more from Chris on the Embedded Blog. He writes the ESE101 column (new posts soon!).
If you are new to version control or learning git, Atlassian has a great set of posts and tutorialsfrom high level “what is version control?” to helping you figure out good usage models (Svec mentioned gitflow). Atlassian has an interactive tutorial that lets you try out the repository commands (or try the Github interactive tutorials). Of course, there is a good O’Reilly book about git.
If you are using SVN (aka Subversion), the Red Bean book from O’Reilly is a good resource.
(Elecia's shirt said You Obviously Like Owls from topatoco.com.)
Jun 14, 2018
249: It Depends
Claire Rowland (@clurr) joined to discuss creating good user experiences for the Internet of Things. Claire is the lead author of Designing Connected Products: UX for the Consumer Internet of Things.
You can find more about her on clairerowland.com, from her talks (including Interusability: UX for Connected Products), her book's website, and her guest appearance on the IoT Podcast (episode 21). Her new report about user experience and the IoT will be on Iotuk.org.uk in June of 2018.
Elecia was also on the IoT Podcast: episode 158.
It was @SwiftOnSecurity who posted the tweet about experts and their typical response.
Jun 7, 2018
248: I’m Not in Charge!
Chris (@stoneymonster) and Elecia (@logicalelegance) answer listener emails.
We did a show with Dennis Jackson about transitioning from software to embedded: 211: 4 Weeks, 3 Days
Chibios RTOS: MyNewt or Zephyr may be more worth your time.
Software tool: Beyond Compare for excellent differencing, including folder level
Other people answer STEAM vs STEM (in about the same way we did).
C++ standards for safety: NASA, ESA, JSF-AV rules, and Jason Turner’s C++ best practices.
Elecia played with Javascript to make a watchface for her Fitbit Versa
Chris got a Blackaddr Guitar Teensy Shield which uses the Teensy Audio Library to do amazing guitar effects via code.
Elecia’s Twitter bot is @pajamaswithfeet (Tracery code on cheapbotsdonequick.com)
Making Embedded Systems book
Embedded Patreon
May 31, 2018
247: He’s Not Going to Cut That, Is He?
Jason Turner (@lefticus) of the CPPCast (@cppcast) spoke with us about modern C++ in embedded systems.
Jason’s articles can be found on EmptyCrate.com. You can also contact him there and find out more about his training sessions. Jason’s video channel is on C++ Weekly and includes an ARM emulator written in C++, running on Compiler Explorer.
* Jason often uses Compiler Explorerby Matt Godbolt (Embedded #190: Trust Me, I’m Right).
* Jason’s C++ Best Practices Guide on Github.
* Listen to CPPCast at cppcast.comor on your favorite podcast app.
* CPPCon 2016 keynote Rich Code for Tiny Computers, where Jason writes a Commodore 64 game in C++.
Jason recommended looking at Odin Holmes’ twitter (@odinthenerd) as well as Odin’s talks from CPPCon (such as his 2017 talk about agent based class design). Odin runs an embedded C++ conference in Germany called Embo++. Also look into Jens Weller’s Meeting C++conference.
During the show, Elecia was looking at cppreference.com.…
May 24, 2018
130: Criminal Training Camp (Repeat)
Alvaro Prieto (@alvaroprieto) spoke with us about laser turrets, tearing down quadcopters, flux capacitors, the moon, and culture at work.
Alvaro's blog
Alvaro's github repositories including Proto-X quadcopter information, Silta bus monitoring, and Skype video message exporter for OSX.
One of the inspirations for taking apart the Proto-X was watching Micah talk about her Coastermelt project. We talked to her about it on episode 101: Taking Apart the Toaster.
One of his reasons for going to Planet Labs was knowing Shaun Meehan, check out his Amp Hour interview.
Daemon by Daniel Suarez
Video of Supercon talk on laser shooting robots
Podcast Award nominations open in early 2016
Getting a picture of the moon in stereo requires some planning especially in 1949 when Alvaro's great-grandfather took these.
On the slide are two images of the moon that combine to create a nicely stereo image.
May 17, 2018
246: Sacrifice That Computer
We spoke with Dr. Bennie Lewis (@_benjoe02) about machine learning and robotics. Bennie is a Senior Research Scientist at Lockheed Martin, content creator, and Twitch streamer (benjoe02)
NVIDIA Jetson platformand Cuda for deep learning
LEGO Mindstorms
SAMS C++ in One Hour a Dayby Siddhartha Rao
May 10, 2018
245: Tell Me How People Hurt You
Stephen Kraig (@Macro_Ninjaneer) and Parker Dillmann (@LnghrnEngineer), of Macrofab (@MacroFab) joined us to chat about getting hardware and software to work together.
Stephen and Parker are also hosts of the Macrofab podcast.
We compared out-the-ordinary podcast guests. For MacroFab episode 112 it was their conversation with a patent lawyer. For Embedded episode 150 it was our conversation with a tax accountant.
Schematics for the Apollo Guidance Computer (and their Kicad replica on github).
May 3, 2018
244: Magic And Electrons
Kristina Durivage (@gelicia) described her path getting into making and hardware hacking as a complement to her day job working in front-end software.
Kristina’s portfolio.gelicia.com includes write-ups on her projects (TweetSkirt, Kitchen Playset Game) as well as links to her talks. Or you can skip to her github.com/gelicia repository.
Kristina has a chapter in the 10 LED Projects for Geeks book coming out from NoStarch Press.
Thank you to Patreon Embedded supporters for Kristina’s mic!
Elecia and Kristina both recommend the classic Robert Aspirin Myth Adventure books!
Apr 26, 2018
243: Pick a Good One
We spoke with Michael Barr (@embeddedbarr) about the Barr Group embedded systems survey.
You can download the 2018 survey at the Barr Group survey page. The Barr Group Embedded C Coding Standardis also free to download (with registration). You can buy a paper copy on Amazon.
Programming Embedded Systems in C and C++ 1st Editionby Michael Barr, also available for free in HTML on the Barr Group site. The second edition is Programming Embedded Systems: With C and GNU Development Tools, 2nd Editionby Michael Barr and Anthony Massa.
The second book was Embedded Systems Dictionaryby Jack Ganssle and Michael Barr
Elecia’s book is Making Embedded Systems: Design Patterns for Great Software.
Apr 19, 2018
242: The Cilantro of Robots
Christine Sunu (@christinesunu) spoke with us about the feelings we get from robots.
For more information about emotive design, check out Christine’s website: christinesunu.com. From there you can find hackpretty.com, some of her talks (including the TED talk with the Fur Worm), and links to her projects (such as Starfish Catand a Cartoon Guide to the Internet of Things). You can find more of her writing and videos on BuzzFeedand The Verge. You can also hire her product development company Flash Bang.
Embedded 142: New and Improved Appendages is where Sarah Petkus offers to let her robot lick us.
Keepon Robot (or on Wikipedia)
Books we talked about:
* Accelerandoby Charles Stross
* Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Lessby Sherry Turkle (MIT site)
* Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Ageby Sherry Turkle (MIT site)
* Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousnessby Peter Godfrey-Smith (Note: Elecia also w…
Apr 12, 2018
241: One Two Blah Blah Blah Ten
Andrei Chichak and Alvaro Prieto (@alvaroprieto) join us to talk about bits and how to manipulate them.
Alvaro is host of the Unnamed Reverse Engineeringpodcast. His other Embedded appearances are 130, 200, and 215.
Andrei (“Andrei from the Great White North”) works at CBF Systems. His other Embedded appearances are 99, 114, 139, and 200.
Andrei wrote about bit manipulation as part of Embedded Wednesdayson Embedded.fm: Logic in C, part II. Andrei recommends using ISO646.hto reduce confusion around bit manipulation. Also, his suggested calculator is the SwissMicros DM16L
Elecia wrote an introduction to binary and hex.
For more information about programming and binary, see How to Count by Steven Frank
For advanced bit twiddling, check out:
* Bit Twiddling Hackswebsite
* Hacker's Delightbook by Henry S. Warren Jr (1st Edis also available)
Apr 5, 2018
240: Belgian Waffles
Jasmine Brackett (@asiwatch) spoke with us about @Tindie’s electronics marketplace, this year’s Hackaday Prize, and tips for wearable electronics.
If you want to buy on Tindie, check out their homepage tindie.com. If you want to sell, that is straightforward too: tindie.com/about/sell.
There is an Embedded contest for the Tindie Blinky LED badge, a nifty little learn to solder kit. Contest ends April 20, 2018 (midnight UTC). You are to send a number to us using the contact link. Closest one wins. One number per person.
You can also get these badges at the Dublin Hackaday Unconference (April 7, 2018, Dublin, Ireland) and at meetups where Jasmine is a presenter.
Thank you to Ben Hencke for some good questions. He talked about his Tindie store with us on 220: Cascading Waterfall of Lights.
Jasmine mentioned the RC2014, homebrew z80 computer kit.
Both Tindie and Hackaday are owned by Supplyframe.
Finally, we talked to Emile Petrone when Tindie was a fairly new thing on 72: This…
Mar 29, 2018
239: Tweet My Boots
What do you do after space debris, hacking dinosaurs, and judging robots? If you are Dr. Lucy Rogers (@DrLucyRogers), you build an organization devoted to promoting the Making industry: Guild of Makers (@GuildOfMakers)
Lucy’s personal site is lucyrogers.com. She wrote the book It’s ONLY Rocket Science: An Introduction in Plain English.
Guild of Maker’s Twitter hack chats are weekly on Tuesdays at 8pm UTC. They use the tag #MakersHour.
Lucy programs in Node-RED, a visual language.
Mar 22, 2018
137: Pausing to Think (Repeat)
Dan Saks answers many questions about C++ in embedded systems: where it works, where it doesn't, and a path to getting started.
Dan Saks is the founder and president of Saks & Associates. He was a columnist for The C/C++ Users Journal, Embedded Systems Design and several other publications. He also served as secretary of the ANSI and ISO C++ standards committee in its early years.
We touched on some of his articles:
* Poor reasons for rejecting C++
* Preventing dynamic allocation
* Calling constructors with placement new
Andrei suggested Sams Teach Yourself C++ in One Hour a Day, Seventh Edition by Siddhartha Rao as a good primer for experienced C programmers reluctantly learning C++.
NOTE: The contest already ended.
Mar 15, 2018
238: My Brain Is My Toolbelt
Chris and Elecia answered some listener questions about dynamic memory and shared code. Then Elecia gave a presentation about ShotSpotter, the gunshot location system she worked on.
Elecia enjoyed The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine Who Outwitted America's Enemies by Jason Fagone.
Ben is the editor of HackSpace, a new magazine about making (and hacking). It's produced by Raspberry Pi, but it's technologically agnostic. The first issue is free online.
The ShotSpotter presentation was originally given with Sarah Newman at the 2008 Grace Hopper Celebration of women in computing.
Mar 9, 2018
237: Break All the Laws of Physics
Jan Jongboom (@janjongboom) of Mbed (@ArmMbed) joined us to talk about compilers, online hardware simulators, and inference on embedded devices.
Find out more about Mbed on mbed.com. The board simulator is at labs.mbed.com(Mbed OS Simulator). The code for the simulator is on Jan’s Github. Mbed Labs also has the uTensor inference framework for using TensorFlow models on devices.
You can see some of Jan’s talks and his blog on janjongboom.com.
Jan will be running a workshop at SxSW called Changing the World with Open, Long-Range IoT on March 10 in Austin, TX. Additionally, he will be hosting an IoT Deep Dive Workshop on LoRA on March 14 (also in Austin, TX).
For background on LoRA, check out the recent Amp Hour episode with Richard Ginus.
Mar 1, 2018
236: The Concept of Delayed Gratification
Roger Linn (@roger_linn) gave us new ideas about musical instruments, detailing how wonderful expressive control, 3D buttons, and keyscanning can be.
Roger’s company is Roger Linn Design. We talked extensively about the LinnStrument, some about the AdrenaLinn for guitar, and only a little bit about the analog drum machine Tempest.
A key matrix circuit is a popular way to handle a large number of buttons but it falls prey to n-key rollover. Roger adds force sense resistors to this (FSR example at Sparkfun).
If you have an idea for an instrument, Roger has already written his response to your request for a prototype. Roger gave a keynote address at ADC '16 about the LinnStrument, including showing the sounds it can make.
OHMI Trust is the one handed musical instrument society enabling music making for everyone.
Roger mentioned some other expressive instruments including:
* Roli Seaboard
* Haken Continuum
* Madrona Labs Soundplane
* Eigenharp
Feb 21, 2018
235: Imagine That, Suckers!
We spoke to author Robin Sloan (@robinsloan) about his books and near-future science fiction.
Robin wrote Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore and Sourdough.
Robin’s website is robinsloan.com. Go there for some short stories, sign up for his newsletter and check out his new ‘zine (also at wizard.limo). Oh! Don’t forget his blog, including a description of his neural net for audio generation and for writing.
Some books Robin suggested:
* Home: A Short History of an Idea by Witold Rybczynshi
* Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
* Hild by Nicola Griffith
Feb 14, 2018
234: The Good Word About AI
Dustin Franklin of NVIDIA (@NVIDIAEmbedded) spoke with us about the Jetson TX2, a board designed to bring AI into embedded systems.
Dusty wrote Two Days to a Demo, both the original supervised learning version and the newer reinforcement learning version. In general, check out Dusty’s github repo to see what’s new. Also, The Redtail project is an autonomous navigation system for drones and land vehicles based on the TX2.
The NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference is in San Jose, CA, March 26-29, 2018. Your coupon for 25% off: NVCYATO
The Jetson TX1/TX2 ChallengeRocket contest ends February 18th.
You can find Dusty on on the NVIDIA forums.
Feb 8, 2018
233: Always the Wrong Way
Chris and Elecia chatted about listener emails, and other stuff and things.
Elecia wrote a book called Making Embedded Systems, if you want to see the chapter about interrupts and timers, hit the contact link on embedded.fm.
We also recommend our blog, Chris Svec wrote about the MSP430 from a microprocessor point of view (ESE101) and Andrei Chichak wrote about an ST processor with a more pragmatic and C focused view (Embedded Wednesdays).
You can support the podcast through Patreon.
Kalman filter explanation video with Pokemon
Ben Krasnow's Applied Science YouTube channel
Usbourne's books for teaching kids electronics and programming (the free '80s ones are near the bottom)
Formally verified microkernel: seL4 Microkernel
The first Pokemon games used every programming trick there is for optimization
STM bought Atollic and released TrueStudio Pro for free for STM parts
Feb 1, 2018
232: Blob Is a Good Word
We spoke with Jackson Keating (@jacksonakeating) about Bluetooth Low Energy, going over GATTs layouts and the general BLE usage.
While Jackson prefers the Bluetooth spec as the best reading explanation, Elecia liked the Adafruit BLE introduction. She wrote about some of her initial experiences with different chips and Chris Svec wrote about BLE roles. We all agreed that the examples and tutorials from your chip vendor is a good place to get experience.
A random UUID generator is uuidgen on Mac or online on uuidgenerator.net.
Elecia mentioned 108: Nebarious, an Embedded episode where we talked about how BLE lacks security.
Jackson suggested looking at the Core Bluetooth API for IOS development as well as the Nordic and LightBlue apps for debugging.
Jan 24, 2018
231: Single Origin Coffee
Tim O’Reilly (@timoreilly) talks about economics, books, and the future. Check out Tim’s new book, WTF: What’s the Future and Why It’s Up to Us. And yes, this is Tim O’Reilly of O’Reilly books.
Elecia’s Making Embedded Systems has a great-eared nightjar, but she’s finally adjusted to a modern dinosaur on her cover.
Jan 17, 2018
230: What the Hell Is Wrong with Unicorns?
Sunshine Jones (@Sunshine_Jones) spoke with us about synthesizers, electronics, and philosophy.
Sunshine’s music is most easily found at TheUrgencyOfChange.com. His writing is at Sunshine-Jones.com.
We talked about Sunshine’s User’s Guide to the Roland SE-02. That includes Ahmed, a track produced using only the SE-02.
Sunshine also wrote about building a polysynth.
The intro music is an excerpt from LELEK, released on Air Texture Vol. V. The exit music is Fall In Love Not In Line, released this year on vinyl only, TUOC01. See TheUrgencyOfChange.com for more.
Sunshine was the host of SundaySoul.com, a live podcast about music and life.
Jan 11, 2018
229: Slinky with a Lot of Math
Nick Kartsioukas (@ExplodingLemur) spoke with us about information security, melting down spectres, lemurs, and sensible resolutions.
Nick recommends Aumasson’s Serious Cryptography (also available from NoStarch) as a good orientation. (Offline, he also recommended Shneier’s Secrets and Lies.)
When thinking about security, you need to develop your threat model (EFF) and not panic (Mickens). As a user of the internet, there are some getting started guides (Motherboard, EFF, Smart Girl’s Guide to Privacy) along with Nick’s advice of using an antivirus program (comparison), an Adblocker (uBlock), a password manager, and 2-factor authentication. Data backups are also very useful (3-2-1 rule: 3 copies, 2 separate media, 1 offsite). For a professional infosec perspective, the CIS 20 are best practice guidelines for computer security.
For Spectre and Meltdown, the best high-level explanation is in Twitter from @gsuberland though XKCD does its usual good job as well. For more detai…
Jan 2, 2018
228: Pedantic or Andrantic
The Amp Hour and Embedded join up to send a holiday letter to listeners.
Chris G is ever improving Contextual Electronics. Chris W has a new band: 12AX7. Elecia still has a book: Making Embedded Systems.
Amp Hour episodes mentioned in this one:
* 372: Where Chris and Dave talk about 2017
* 304: Alexa jokes
* 281: The first Amp Hour / Embedded show, with call ins
* 256: The first time Chris W was on the Amp Hour
* 187: Elecia joined the Amp Hour for the first time
Embedded episodes mentioned:
* 223: Where Chris talks about his new synth habit
* 227: Talking about Udacity and learning
* 203: EE Charlie talks about good design
We talked about teaching which led to:
* Short mention of Dreyfus model of skill acquisition of which Chris G’s friend Mel did a great explanatory comic
* Daniel Spalding’s How to Teach Adults (pdf)
* Dan Luu’s Learning To Program post
* Udacity’s Self Driving Car courses
* Computer vision with Python OpenCV
* Article…
Dec 21, 2017
227: Half of Everything Is Wrong
Anthony Navarro (@avnavarro42) of Udacity (@udacity) spoke with us about learning.
We talked about the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition (an education-oriented technical readiness level) and a little about on trunk skills vs. leaf skills.
Elecia took Udacity’s term 1 of Self-Driving Car Nanodegree and is planning to take the free AI for Robotics course next. Anthony is enjoying soldering lessons via Boldport (hear #171: Perfectly Good Being Square and Green).
Anthony noted there is a free Embedded course on Udacity.
Dec 14, 2017
226: Camp AVR Vs. Camp Microchip
Jay Carlson (@jaydcarlson), author of The Amazing $1 Microcontroller, joined us to talk about comparing microcontrollers and determining our biases. This was an in-depth comparison of different micro features.
Jay is an electrical engineer specializing in electronics design and embedded programming (contact). His blog is new and interesting.
We talked to SEGGER’s Dirk Akeman about JLink on #218: Neutron Star of Dev Boards.
Please note that our Patreon model has shifted to monthly instead of per-episode.
Dec 7, 2017
225: When Toasters Attack
Maria Gorlatova spoke with us about how the combination of devices and cloud computing will change the world as we know it.
Maria’s bio, blog, and LinkedIn page.
Other topics:
* Federated Learning from Google
* AWS Greengrass from Amazon
* Black Mirror from Netflix
Note: we really should have talked about Amazon and FreeRTOS. I heard another podcastmight have mentioned it. We’ll try to get more info soon.
Nov 29, 2017
124: Please Don't Light Yourself on Fire (Repeat)
Windell Oskay (@Oskay) of Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories (@EMSL) told us about co-authoring a book: The Annotated Build-It-Yourself Science Laboratory.
Some great EMSL links:
* A signed copy of Windell's book
* Dis-integrated 555 timer kit
* Candle flicker LEDs
* Food in specimen jars EMSL blog post
* Spherical pen plotter (EggBot Pro!)
The book Chris brought up was Thinking Physics.
Windell is also on Google Plus.
Contest to get Windell's signed book has already ended!
Nov 22, 2017
224: Interrupts to Interrupt Interrupts
Andrei Chichak joins Elecia and Christopher to do a deep dive into the world of interrupts.
Andrei writes on our blog: Embedded Wednesdays. He has written specifically about interrupts in multiple ways: general introduction, buttons and debouncing, peripheral data transfer via DMA, and so on). The knock-knock joke comes from Chris Svec’s Embedded.fm blog post on interrupts.
Jack Ganssle on debouncing buttons
Nov 16, 2017
223: Gregorian Chants and Things
Christopher (@stoneymonster) and Elecia (@logicalelegance) chat about listener questions and things they’ve been up to.
A listener turned Chris on to Ray Wilson and his Music From Outer Space website on DIY analog synths and book Make: Analog Synthesizers. After collecting parts for a total DIY, he found and built a neat kit: Kastle Synth (as heard on the show) and has connected it to his Roland SE-02 Analog Synthesizer (on Amazon). BTW, his ham radio WSPR kit is the Ultimate 3 in case you are behind on hobbies. You can hear more about it in 197: Smell the Transistor.
Elecia has been working through Udacity’s Self-Driving Engineer nanodegree. She completed term 1 with its computer vision and machine learning and is on to term 2 with sensor fusion, localization, and control. She blissfully is unaware of the cost because she got to be an industry expert for the Intro to Self-Driving Cars course.
Listener Simon asked about non-fiction books. Elecia gets many of hers by looking at…
Nov 9, 2017
222: Virtual Bunnie
Jonathan Beri (@beriberikix) spoke with us about his double life: Particle.io product manager by day, maker by night (and weekends).
Jonathan wrote a chapter about piDuino5 Mobile Robot Platform in JavaScript Robotics.
Product manager resources from product.careers and Ken Norton's Newsletter. For an alternate take, there is a good cartoon about effective product management from Henrik Kniberg.
For getting into open source, see the guide from Github. Also, there is a newi-sh consortium, the TODO group, with guides and resources about running open source projects.
There is also the often useful Google's developer documentation style guide.
NerdRage’s video on the chemistry of etching
The Essential Guide to Electronics in Shenzhen by Bunnie Huang
Speaking of Robot Operating System (we did, briefly), IEEE Spectrum had a nice history of ROS.
Nov 1, 2017
221: Hiding in Plain Sight
Author Jimmy Soni (@jimmyasoni) spoke with us about his biography of Claude Shannon, founder of information theory and digital circuit theory.
A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age by Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman. For an introduction to the book, read their post 10,000 Hours With Claude Shannon: How A Genius Thinks, Works, and Lives.
Rome's Last Citizen: The Life and Legacy of Cato, Mortal Enemy of Caesar by Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman
The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation by Jon Gertner
Mark Levinson’s Particle Fever is a documentary film about the Large Hadron Collider. He is also directing a film about Claude Shannon
Scientific Aspects of Juggling by Claude Shannon
Oct 26, 2017
220: Cascading Waterfall of Lights
Ben Hencke (@im889) spoke with us about OHWS, Tindie, and blinking lights.
Ben sells his Pixelblaze WiFi LED controller on his ElectroMage store on Tindie. It is based on the ESP8266 and uses the DotStar (APA102) lights.
To hear John Leeman’s trip report on the Open Hardware Summit (OHWS), listen to Don’t Panic Geocast, Episode 140 – “Juicero of Tractors”
Ben’s websites are bhencke.com and electromage.com. Go there if you want to see some of Ben’s projects, including Synthia. You can also find Ben on Hackaday, Github, and YouTube.
We talked with Charles Lohr about ESP8266 WiFi controlled lights and ColorChord on Embedded.fm episode 102: The Deadly Fluffy Bunny (With WiFi).
Laser cut mandalas
OSHPark
Small Batch Assembly
More about the 4-bit Radio Shack computer (and an Arduino-based emulator for it!)
Santa Cruz Idea Fab Lab
Ben Hencke (@im889) spoke with us about OHWS, Tindie, and blinking lights.
Ben sells his Pixelblaze WiFi LED controller on his ElectroMage…
Oct 19, 2017
62: Costs a Penny to Go to the Bathroom (Repeat)
Josh Bleecher Snyder (@offbymany) joined us to talk about PayPal's Beacon, being acquired, the Go programming language, BTLE, computer vision, and working at a large company after founding small ones.
Bluetooth Low Energy: A Developer's Handbook by Robin Heydon
TI CC2540 BTLE module
Learning OpenCV: Computer Vision by Gary Bradski and Adrian Kaehler
Gatt is a Go package for building Bluetooth Low Energy peripherals (video description by Josh from GopherCon 2014)
Card.io
Machine learning's Theano
Eigen Library for matrix math
Oct 12, 2017
219: Not Obviously Negligent
Kelly Shortridge (@swagitda_) spoke with us about the intersection of security and behavioral economics. Kelly’s writing and talks are linked from her personal site swagitda.com. Kelly is currently a Product Manager at SecurityScorecard.
Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
What Works by Iris Bohnet
Risky Business, a podcast about security
Teen Vogue’s How to Keep Your Internet Browser History Private
Surveillance Self-Defense from EFF, including security for journalists as mentioned in the show
Bloomberg’s Matt Levine
Twitter suggestion @SwiftOnSecurity, @thegrugq, and @sawgitda_.
Oct 5, 2017
218: Neutron Star of Dev Boards
Dirk Akeman of SEGGER (@SEGGERMicro) joined us to talk about debugger specifics.
* Ozone standalone debugger for use with J-Links
* SystemView visualization tool for RTOS and system debugging
* Jlink Products
* Turning an ST-Link on a development board into a J-Link
We recently did two other shows on debugging: a general intro with Alvaro Prieto and one with a focus on the development-system’s debugger software interface with Pierre-Marie de Rodat.
Herd immunity and find a flu shot
And, yes, we did bleep Dirk's answer for favorite processor because he later reconsidered the idea that he only had one favorite.
Sep 28, 2017
217: 10000 Pounds of Pressure
Bob Skala of Interactive Instruments spoke with us about very large servo motors, wind tunnels, and staying current in tech.
Hydraulic Press YouTube channel (and our favorite video)
The Wright Brothers by David McCullough
Other good tech podcasts included The Amp Hour and HamRadio 360 WorkBench
Chris talked about getting into WSPR in 197: Smell the Transistor but we first talked about it in 76: Entropy is For Wimps. The new WSPR mode he mentioned is called FT8 (google it).
And a note from Bob:
Below is a link to a type of servo system that tries to simplify the interface to be more like a stepper. It integrates the driver and motor into a single package so you can treat it like a stepper with digital step and direction or serial commands. You get the smoothness, speed, accuracy and low power (when idle) of a servo but the servo motor, driver, and cabling are integrated into one magic box. You add a DC supply and simple control signals and you are all set. They came out with this…
Sep 21, 2017
216: Bavarian Folk Metal
Carmen Parisi (@FakeEEQuips) joined us to talk about electronics and podcasts.
Carmen works on switching regulators. If you want to know more, he sent along some very basic application notes: How to Apply DC-DC Step Down Regulators (Analog Devices) and Switching Regulator Fundamentals (TI). The digital communication method with these switchers is the I2C-like PMBus. If all those make sense, dive a little deeper with chapter 9 of the online and free Linear Circuit Design Handbook. Carmen says the whole book is excellent for analog information. Also, the free chapter of the Art of Electronics is on power. If all that still makes sense, you may be Carmen if you can also write an app note like this one: Multiphase Buck Design From Start to Finish (Part 1).
Carmen is a host on The Engineering Commons (@TEC_Podcast). Some episodes you might enjoy are 93: Capacitors with James Lewis of KEMET (aka BaldEngineer) and 77: Remote Host Toast with Elecia White.
Some suggested books from Carmen…
Sep 14, 2017
215: Heisenbugs
Alvaro Prieto (@alvaroprieto) joined us to talk about the basics of debugging, from software to hardware.
Some of the programmer devices we talked about: SEGGER JLink and Black Magic Probe.
Chris mentioned a visual frontend for gdb called "Vulcan" but which is actually called Voltron. (He's got graphics on the brain).
How did we forget to mention the six stages of debugging?
Alvaro Prieto and Jen Costillo's new podcast on reverse engineering! And on Twitter as @unnamed_show.
Alvaro's Cheese Cave: making cheese and cheese-lapse photography of Brie aging.
Sep 7, 2017
214: Tiny Sensor Problems
Kristen Dorsey explained MEMS sensors: how do they work, how they are made, and what new ones we expect to see in the future.
Kristen’s website is kristendorsey.com. She is a professor of engineering at Smith College and runs the MicroSmithie.
MEMS stands for microelectromechanical systems (Wiki). Used in some sensors, Galistan is a room-temp liquid with interesting properties (Wiki).
A few interesting MEMS applications:
* Micronium: a tiny resonator making music
* 2-stroke gas engine
* Pinball machine
One of Kristen's stretchy strain sensor, not MEMS (so you can see it)
Aug 31, 2017
213: Electricity Doesn't Act Like an Apple
Gretchen Bakke spoke with us about the future of power generation and transmission. Her book is The Grid: The Fraying Wires Between Americans and Our Energy Future.
Gretchen is a professor of anthropology at McGill University.
Gretchen’s website
The book’s Facebook page
Grechen’s first book is Anthropology of the Arts: A Reader
Aug 24, 2017
212: You Are in Seaworld
Kwabena Agyeman joined us to talk about making OpenMV (@OpenMVCam), an easy-to-use camera and control module with built-in machine vision functions, all interfaced via MicroPython.
To learn more about computer vision, Kwabena suggested looking at PyImageSearch or reading the April tags code as it is a good introduction to image manipulation and matrix operations.
Some other interesting links:
* Ferrari World, view from satellite
* Cloud Atlas (on Netflix)
* DIY Robotics from Chris Anderson: DIY Robocars
* Kwabena worked on the CMUCam (version 3)
* The Amp Hour had a good episode about MicroPython
* Elecia likes this introduction to linear algebra, matrix operations, and singular value decomposition (SVD)
* OpenMV on Hackaday.io and for sale at SparkFun
* The future of OpenMV might include Google’s MobileNets
* Kwabena gave a talk about the OpenMV manufacturing difficulties at the Hackaday Supercon 2016 and he plans to be there for Supercon 2017 (Pasadena, Novem…
Aug 17, 2017
211: 4 weeks, 3 days
Dennis Jackson spoke with us about making the career shift from software to embedded.
Dennis buys James Grenning’s Test Driven Development in Embedded C for his new hires and often recommends Elecia’s Making Embedded Systems. His tip that everyone should know was “Learn make!” and he has a reference for that: Why Use Make.
He suggested Joel Spolsky’s reading lists from Joel On Software, even the ones that don’t obviously apply.
Additional suggested-reading articles:
* 30 Pitfalls for Real Time Systems (part 1 and part 2)
* Rules for defensive C programming
* Why are you still using C
* What every computer scientist should know about floating point arithmetic
* The Power of Ten -- 10 Rules for Writing Safety Critical Code .
In his previous appearance on Embedded (#25: Don’t Be Clever), we talked about code complexity and measuring cyclomatic complexity. At that time he wanted a tool to monitor the code’s status. He has since found one: pmccabe.
Dennis…
Aug 10, 2017
210: The Glass Hour
Alan Yates (@vk2zay) told us about his entries to the 2017 Flashing Light Prize. Alan's entries involved making a light bulb and dripping charge.
Alan works at Valve. He told us about making virtual reality hardware in Embedded episode 162: I Am a Boomerang Enthusiast.
Hackaday SuperCon is Nov 11-12, 2017 in Pasadena.
Aug 3, 2017
209: Debuggerception
Pierre-Marie de Rodat (@pmderodat) joined us to talk about how debugger software works (and what compilers tell the debugger).
Pierre-Marie works for AdaCore on GNATcoverage (among other things). His github repo is pmderodat.
Note that the AdaCore sponsored Make with Ada competition is running right now but you still have time to enter! Last year’s winner, Stephane Carrez with EtherScope, made an Ethernet monitor for an STM32 board (github).
GDB supports Python scripting!?!!!
DWARF is the most standard debugging data format. Before that it was stabs. To see this information in a Linux or Mac system, use objdump. (It is really interesting!)
Foundation by Isaac Asimov
Jul 26, 2017
208: What If You Had a Machine Do It
Elecia gave a talk about machine learning and robotics at the Hackaday July Meetup at SupplyFrame DesignLab (video!) and LA CrashSpace. She gives it again in the podcast while Chris narrates the demos.
Embedded Patreon
Embedded show #187: Self Driving Arm is the interview with Professor Patrick Pilarski about machine learning and robotics applied to prosthetic limbs.
I have also written more about my machine learning + robot arm on this blog. My code is in github (TyPEpyt).
My machine learning board is Nvidia’s Jetson TX2. The Two Days to a Demo is a good starting point. However, if you are new to machine learning, a better and more thorough introduction is the Andrew Ng’s Machine Learning course on Coursera. To try out machine learning, look at Weka Data Mining Software in Java for getting to know your data and OpenIA Gym for understanding reinforcement learning algorithms
I use the MeArm for my robot arm. For July 2017, the MeArm kit is on sale at the Hackaday store with…
Jul 19, 2017
111: Potty Train Your Tamagotchi (Repeat)
Natalie Silvanovich (@natashenka) discussed reverse engineering hardware, working on security software, and the fantastic world of Tamagotchis.
Natalie's site and blog
Hardware Excuse Generator
Original CCC 2012 talk: Many Tamagotchis Were Harmed in the Making of this Presentation
CCC 2013 talk: Even More Tamagotchis Were Harmed in the Making of this Presentation
Natalie's upcoming BlackHat talk: Attacking ECMAScript Engines with Redefinition
Flash exploit article for Project Zero: One Perfect Bug: Exploiting Type Confusion in Flash
Tamagotchis are still available as are the works of Shel Silverstein (Snowball is in Falling Up).
Natalie's Tamagotchi board
Jul 12, 2017
78: Happy Cows (Repeat)
Chris Svec (@christophersvec) has an idea about adding empathy to software development. It is a good idea.
His blog is Said Svec. He works for iRobot and they are hiring. (Chris' email is given toward the end of the show but if you hit the contact link here, we'll pass along info to him.)
Obligatory cat video
Embedded has an episode devoted to impostor syndrome.
O'Reilly's Head First book series is pretty awesome.
Elecia is still talking about Thinking, Fast and Slow as a great way to understand brains. Chris Svec also recommends Make It Stick.
The Richard Hamming quote came from his address to the Naval Postgraduate School. The whole lecture is available on YouTube.
Jul 5, 2017
207: I Love My Robot Monkey Head
Professor Ayanna Howard of Georgia Tech joins us to talk about robotics including how androids interact with humans. Some of her favorite robot include the Darwin, the Nao, and, for home-hacking, the Darwin Mini.
Ayanna has a profile on EngineerGirl.org, a site that lets young women ask questions of women in the engineering profession.
Elecia has been working on a typing robot named Ty, documented on the Embedded.fm blog. It uses a MeArm, on sale in July 2017 at Hackaday.com, with coupon noted in show. (don't use PayPal to check out or you can't apply the coupon).
Other robots for trying out robots: Lego Mindstorms (lots of books, project ideas, and incredible online tutorials!), Cozmobot, Dash and Dot. Some robotics competition leagues include Vex, Botball, and FIRST.
Jun 28, 2017
206: Crushing Amounts of Snow
This week, we mix things up a bit. This joint show with the Don't Panic Geocast. This episode explores what happens when electrical engineering meets geoscience in cold places. We’re joined by guest Dr. Sridhar Anandakrishnan of Penn State to talk about geopebbles, ice, climate, and more!
* Asimov Robot Series
* Anthropornis (giant penguins)
* Ice crystal structure
* Ice streams
* GeoPebble
* Propeller Programming (Book)
Fun Paper Friday: The Boring Company
Jun 21, 2017
205: Questions about Dumplings
This week we talked to Addie (@atdiy) and Whisker (@whixr), the Toymakers (@Tymkrs). They make electronics kits, videos, and conference badges.
Toymakers site (tymkrs.com) has a link to their IRC channel, videos, and Tindie store(including those amazing heart simulators, the easy to make Amplify Me, and Protosynth Midi).
Their reddit community is r/Tymkrs. It has a lot more information about the CypherCon 2017 badges. More about CypherCon at cyphercon.com.
Some of their ZombieTech podcast is available on YouTube (along with First Spin and Patch Bay, see the playlists to find grouped series). Note that Rabbithole is the name of their hackspace as well as the video series documenting project creation. Episode 200 has the violin we discussed.
We seem to have talked about a lot of other people on the show, especially shared friends and past Embedded.fm guests (some of whom were on ZombieTech).
* Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories with their online and Sunnyvale store. This is run by…
Jun 14, 2017
204: Abuse Electricity
Phoenix Perry (@phoenixperry) spoke with us about physical games. Phoenix is CTO of DoItKits (@DoItKits) and
More about Phoenix:
* Bot Party
* Her site: PhoenixPerry.com
* Goldsmith’s page
* She enjoyed Obelisk Gate by NK Jemisin
Physical games are sometimes called Alt Ctrl such as at the Alt Ctrl Game Jam.
Phoenix co-founded Code Liberation with Nina Freeman (http://ninasays.so/) and Jane Friedhoff (http://janefriedhoff.com/). “Code Liberation catalyzes the creation of digital games and creative technologies by women, nonbinary, femme, and girl-identifying people to diversify STEAM fields.” There is an 8-part workshop in London in Summer 2017 (more info).
Some other interesting people:
* Catt Small
* Lynne Bruning (http://etextilelounge.com/)
* Helen Steer (http://doitkits.com/)
* Perla Maiolino
* Rebecca Febrink
How to Get What You Want wearables site
Yoga Pants
AutoDesk Fusion360
I know you only read the show notes because you wanted this link: Vela…
Jun 7, 2017
203: Save My Board
Charlie Ladd (@csladd) joined us to give an overview of good hardware practices.
The oil quality sensor is from VSI Oil.
Recent fiction included Ready Player One, John Scalzi, and Matthew Mather.
To stay current, Charlie reviews the trade magazines: EEWeb.com, EDN, ECN, and EETimes.
A junior engineer's tale of woe.
May 31, 2017
202: Flush and Your Inner Fish
Professor Alex Dean spoke with us about his ARM embedded systems books and @NCState courses.
Alex’s page in North Carolina State University’s department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
His book is Embedded Systems Fundamentals with Arm Cortex M Based Microcontrollers: A Practical Approach (ecopy available from the ARM Media site). It uses the FRDM-KL25Z as the example board throughout the text.
Alex also co-authored Embedded Systems, An Introduction Using the Renesas RX62N
His favorite RTOS is Keil RTX.
We also mentioned about Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body by Neil Shubin and Flush by Carl Hiaasen
May 24, 2017
201: Accidentally Incredibly Dangerous
Shaun Meehan (@logiclow) joined us to talk about robot arms and stealth rocket companies. Shaun’s rocket startup is hiring; information about the job openings are below.
Shaun’s robot arm is an ABB IRB-2000 (video of Fred). Elecia was reading How to Choose the Right Industrial Robot when Shaun emailed. He convinced her that the MeArm Pocket Size Robotic Arm is the likely best choice for her machine learning typer project (which needs a better name).
All this led to a discussion of inverse kinematics, robot operating system (ROS), and OpenAI. SparkFun has a nice guide to selecting the right motor if the DC, servo, stepper section went by a bit fast. Elecia mentioned the TI Piccolo line as good motor controllers, assuming you aren't building an FPGA controller from scratch on your own.
Repair cafes are a thing.
Shaun was on The Amp Hour 220: Doctiloquent Dove Deployer where he talked a lot more about his robot pets. For more about Fred, the robot arm, check out LogicLow.com. Al…
May 17, 2017
200: Oops
Episode 200! Let’s have a party (and a survey)! Former guests joined us in a panel-style celebration of working in embedded systems: Alvaro Prieto, Andrei Chichak, Elizabeth Brenner, Chris Svec, and Chris Gammell.
Alvaro Prieto (@alvaroprieto) was a guest on 130: Criminal Training Camp.
Andrei Chichak writes Embedded Wednesdays and was on 99: You Can Say a Boat, 114: Wild While Loops and 139: Easy to Add Blood Splatter.
Elizabeth Brenner (@eabrenner) was a guest on 17: Facebook Status: Maybe Not Dead and 54: Oh, The Hugh Manatee,
Chris Svec (@christophersvec) writes Embedded Software Engineering 101 was on 78: Happy Cows and 139: Easy to Add Blood Splatter.
Chris Gammell (@Chris_Gammell) was a guest on 35: All These Different Reasons Why You Might Want to Do Something as well as a co-host on the holiday Embedded/Amp Hour crossover episode 181: Work on It for Ten Years.
Fiction mentioned:
* Authors Harlan Coben and CJ Cherryh
* Robopocalype by Daniel Wilson
* The Rest…
May 10, 2017
199: Petri Dishes of Doom
Chris and Elecia answer listener questions about contracting (and consulting).
Reminders: T-shirts! Hat contest! Digilent contest announced in #197! It all ends around May 18th so get your entries in now!
The original discussion was on episode 4: Are We Not Lawyers?
Elecia's salary to rate conversion can be found as a Google spreadsheet.
May 4, 2017
198: Unmanned Flying Thingy
Walter Stockwell spoke with us about the legalization of drones, UAVs, UASs, and UFOs.
Walter works at DJI which makes the Phantom. They have some jobs open.
Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson
Intel/Pepsi drone show at SuperBowl halftime
AOPA Facebook page
The amateur model aircraft organization discussed was the Academy of Model Aeronautics(AMA).
ASSURE UAS Ground Collision Severity Evaluation Final Report (also: press release)
Elecia mentioned the Madgwick Filter.
Embedded.fm t-shirts are available for a limited time! There are two distributors: one US based, one Europe based. Choose whichever is closest to you.
Elecia’s TV appearance on The Jennylyn Show is on YouTube.
Digilent Digital Discovery contest ends May 19.
Apr 26, 2017
197: Smell the Transistor
Chris and Elecia talk with each other about science fiction, advertising, ham radios, debugging tools, and programming languages.
You can buy Embedded.fm t-shirts until May 18, 2017. You can always buy Elecia’s book: Making Embedded Systems. And don’t forget we have a Patreon if you’d like to support the show directly.
Some science fiction we mentioned: Seveneves by Neal Stephenson, Nightfall and Last Question by Isaac Asimov, and the All This Time video from Jonathan Coulton.
Digilent sent us goodies to review: one Analog Discovery 2 and two Digital Discovery units. So we did, though we didn't cover the high speed adapters and other nifty goodies. Check out Alvaro Prieto’s Troubleshooting tools HDDG talk for some additional information on the devices. For the giveaways, rules are in the show, hit the contact link to enter. Contest ends May 19th.
Chris has been doing low-power ham radio contacts (WSPR) using an Ultimate 3S kit from QRP Labs. We talked about WSPR some wit…
Apr 19, 2017
196: Software Server Thingybob
Aditi Hilbert (@HilbertAditi) spoke with us about MyNewt, an Apache-licensed RTOS and bootloader.
MyNewt’s Apache page is mynewt.apache.org and the github repository is github.com/apache/incubator-mynewt-core. In the README.md, check out the section marked browsing which points to the file system, ble stack, and assorted other source code goodies you may want to read. The secure bootloader code is also in there but as it is also a cross-RTOS effort (with Linux’s Zephyr), you can find the MCUBoot repository at github.com/runtimeco/mcuboot
Aditi works for Runtime.io (@runtime_io), a primary contributor to MyNewt. They work with companies who want to use MyNewt on their products.
We talked about OIC (openconnectivity.org) and using UDP endpoints over BLE. Constrained http is actually called constrained application protocol: CoAP (coap.technology). We also mentioned MQTT, an older standard attempting to solve some of the same problems.
The Apache license is one of the most permissi…
Apr 12, 2017
195: A Bunch of Sputniks
We discussed CubeSats with their co-inventor, Professor Jordi Puig-Suari, Professor of Aerospace Engineering at CalPoly SLO and co-founder of Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems.
The 2017 CubeSat conference is in San Luis Obispo, CA on April 26-28. More details at CubeSat.org.
Information about CubeSats at CalPoly SLO can be found at PolySat.org.
Tyvak is hiring for a number of different positions: tyvak.com/careers.
For more satellite goodness, we spoke with Patrick Yeon of Planet about their CubeSat-based platform and deployment mechanism in Embedded episode 153: Space Nerf Gun.
Thank you to Embedded Patreon supporters for Jordi’s microphone!
Apr 5, 2017
194: Something For Something
Shulie Tornel (@helixpea) joined us to talk about the 2017 Hackaday Prize (@hackaday and @hackadayio).
Hackaday World Create Day is April 22nd, let them know if you want do a meetup so they can add you to the calendar.
Elecia gave away all of her potential ideas, trying to figure out which one would work best for entry. It was probably Maxwell except for its lack of novelty (Embedded shows #17 and #54and there is a SparkFun Tutorial).
Are you entering? The first phase (until May) is community driven (popularity contest). Post your entry here or tweet to us (@embeddedfm) and we'll like it. Also, it was Shantam Raj's Self-sustained Ultralow-power Node that we discussed in the show.
Neon Demons (trailer)
Embedded blog contributor Chris Svec was on the CodeNewbie podcast talking about robots and chip design. The following week Saron invited Elecia to record an episode about getting into hardware and embedded software.
Mar 29, 2017
193: Axiomatically Did Not Happen
Owen Anderson (@OwenResistor) joined us to talk about how compilers are written. We discussed LLVM, intermediate representation, clang, and GPUs.
As mentioned at the end of the show, Owen’s current employer is hiring. If you are interested and would like to get the brownie points that come with being a friend of a friend, contact us and we’ll connect you to Owen and he’ll submit your resume.
Recent books Owen mentioned: Manager Path, Feminist Fight Club, The Laundry Files seriesby Charles Stross.
LLVM Language Reference
Teardown of what goes into rasterization
What Every C Programmer Should Know About Undefined Behavior
Mar 22, 2017
192: Button Connected To Nothing
Terry Dunlap, CEO of Tactical Network Solutions (@tacnetsol), spoke with us about security in the Internet of Things.
The good:
* Top 10 Secure Coding Practices (from CERT.org)
* UL 2900 standard (consumer label for security)
The bad and the ugly:
* FTC complain about TrendNet
* FDA alert about St Jude’s implantable defibrillator
* Mirai botnet
Mar 15, 2017
191: What, Yogurt!?!
Chris (@stoneymonster) and Elecia (@logicalelegance) answer listener emails.
Get your entries in for March Micro Madness, the matches start very soon.
The short story Elecia finds most memorable is All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury.
We mentioned Procopio who teaches microcontrollers at the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education ITESM (site, wiki)
Hector sent up the IEEE Code of Ethics, a good high-level set of rules.
Mar 8, 2017
190: Trust Me, I'm Right
Matt Godbolt (@mattgodbolt) spoke with us about settling arguments with Compiler Explorer.
Compiler Explorer comes different flavors:
* https://rust.godbolt.org/
* https://d.godbolt.org/
* https://go.godbolt.org/
* https://gcc.godbolt.org/
You can see the beta version by putting a beta on the end: https://gcc.godbolt.org/beta/
This a fully open source project. You can read the code and/or run your own version:
* https://github.com/mattgodbolt/compiler-explorer
* https://github.com/mattgodbolt/compiler-explorer-image
Matt works at DRW working on low latency software. Note that DRW is hiring for software engineers. You can read about the evolution of Compiler Explorer on their blog.
Matt’s personal blog is xania.org. You might like parts about 6502 Timings. He also has several conference talks on YouTube including x86 Internals for Fun & Profit and Emulating a 6502 in Javascript. Matt was previously at Argonaut Games.
Jason Turner of C++ Weekly and h…
Mar 1, 2017
189: The Squishiness Factor
Kari Love (@ikyotochan) spoke with us about creating soft robotics. You can see her edible soft robots talk from 33c3. Kari works at Super-Releaser. Her personal site (and blog) is Kari Makes.
Kari mentioned that the Super-Release intern Aidan had some picks for soft robotics on Instructables.
Super-Releaser created the Glaucus soft robot and Adafruit has an in-depth tutorial for how to make it.
Some videos of soft actuators and soft robots:
*
Super-Releaser Playing with Heat-Sealed Actuators (including the spiral)
*
Silicone gripper from a cardboard mold
*
Voxel Soft Robotic Simulation Evolution
*
Super Long Mylar Robot
*
MIT Tangible Media Group AeroMorph
Soft Exoskeletons
*
http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2014/11/12/wearable-power-assist-device-goes-on-sale-in-japan/
*
http://biodesign.seas.harvard.edu/soft-exosuits
*
http://www.roamrobotics.com/
Rat heart cell robot from Popular Mechanics
First Autonomous Entirely Soft Robot (Harvard Octobot)…
Feb 22, 2017
188: Twitter Is a Cocktail Party
Scott Hanselman (@shanselman) of the Hanselminutes Podcast talks about technology podcasting and philosophy.
You can find Scott's blog on Hanselman.com/blog and his other podcasts on Hanselman.com/podcasts.
We talked about Hansleminutes' WebVR episode with Ada Rose Edwards and Alcohol and Tech with Victor Yocco. We also mentioned Scott's blog post from 2014 about what technologies he would learn if he had to start over.
Feb 15, 2017
187: Self-Driving Arm
Crossing machine intelligence, robotics, and medicine, Patrick Pilarski (@patrickpilarski) is working on smart prosthetic limbs.
Build your own learning robot references: Weka Data Mining Software in Java for getting to know your data, OpenIA Gym for understanding reinforcement learning algorithms, Robotis Servos for the robot (AX is the lower priced line), and five lines of code:
pred = numpy.dot(xt,w)
delta = r + gamma*numpy.dot(xtp1,w) - pred
e = gamma*lamda*e + xt
w = w + alpha*delta*e
xt = xtp1
Patrick even made us a file (with comments and everything!).
Once done, you can enter the Cybathlon. (Or check out a look at Cybathlon 2016 coverage.)
Machine Man by Max Barry
Snow Country by Bokushi Suzuki
Aimee Mullins and her many amazing legs (TED Talk)
Patrick is a professor at University of Alberta, though a lot more than that: he is the Canada Research Chair in Machine Intelligence for Rehabilitation at the University of Alberta, and Assistant Professor in the Divisio…
Feb 8, 2017
186: Sleeping on the Factory Floor
Indrek Rebane (@RebaneIndrek) spoke with us about the Garage48 Hardware and Arts hackathon, hardware incubators in Estonia, linguistics, hydrology, and startup investments.
Garage48 Hardware & Arts hackathon is February 17-19, 2017 at the Institute of Physics, University of Tartu (Tartu, Estonia). The event is organized by Garage48, University of Tartu and the Estonian Academy of Arts.
Indrek is CTO of Build It Hardware Accelerator and electronics engineer for Hedgehog Engineering.
Recommended book: The Mom Test: How to talk to customers & learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you
Other resources Indrek mentioned after recording:
* Why to Not Not Start a Startup by Paul Graham (blog)
* Why not to do a startup by Marc Andreessen (blog)
* Don’t Follow Your Passion by Ben Horowitz (video)
* Why Not To Do a Startup by Dave McClure (video)
Feb 1, 2017
99: You Can Say a Boat (Repeat)
While we planned to ask Andrei Chichak to podcast when he was in town for the Embedded.fm party, we spent too much time goofing off. So we are replaying Andrei's first appearance on the show where he spoke with us about MISRA-C and ethics. (Note that this is the same Andrei who writes the STM32 Embedded Wednesday posts for the Embedded.fm blog.)
Linker post: It's dangerous to go alone! Take MISRA-C
Andrei's has personal website (we failed to talk about his kite aerial photography, it is really neat though) and his company is CBF Systems.
Plum Hall C Compiler Validation
PC Lint
JPL Coding Standards for C (and the mentioned video discussing Mars Code)
ISO 26262 Automobile software standard
Cortex-R for high reliability systems (ARM's description)
National Society of Professional Engineers code of ethics and Canadian Engineering Guidelines on the Code of Ethics
Offline, Andrei recommended two books and another podcast about MISRA:
* C Traps and Pitfalls
* Safer C
* MISRA w…
Jan 25, 2017
185: Nice Mahogany Table
Debby Meredith (@DebbyMe) stops by to tell us what it is like being a venture partner and interim VP of engineering. Debby is a venture partner at Icon Ventures. Her website is DebbyMeredith.com. She was on a new podcast: Women Who Code Radio.
Computer History Museum's new exhibit is Make Software: Change the World. It opens on January 28, 2017.
After recording, Debby mentioned a book she likes: Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist.
January 28th Hats and Hacks Party RSVP
Jan 18, 2017
184: Not Likely, Possible, or Safe
Ben Krasnow (@BenKrasnow) spoke with us about prototyping, Patreon, and staying current. And a whole bunch of stuff.
January 28th Hats and Hacks Party RSVP
Ben’s YouTube channel is Applied Science. His recent videos have been shot with the high speed Chronos camera (whose creator David Kronstein was on The Amp Hour #325).
Ben has a Patreon page which funds randomness. (Embedded also has a Patreon page, for randomness and mics.)
Ben was previously on the show: 119: Do Your Neighbors Have Any Idea?
For BLE prototyping, Ben mentioned the OSH Chip by Philip Freidin (146: The Loyal Opposition) and using Processing for Android to make quick-n-dirty test applications.
We mentioned the Wazer desktop waterjet.
Chris brought up this video describing impedance with a mechanical model.
One of Ben’s favorite videos that he did was the first one with an electron microscope, way back in 2011: DIY Scanning Electron Microscope - Overview.
Ben gets a lot of his news from Hacker News: https…
Jan 11, 2017
183: Robots Having Nervous Breakdowns
Philip Koopman (@BetterEmbSW) spoke with us about making better embedded software. His Better Embedded Systems Software blog has lots of great information including links to his growing video library. Two posts noted in the show:
* Recording Peer Reviews Spreadsheet
* Code Review Checklist
His company, Edge Case Research, performs design and code reviews and teaches how to do them. You can find out more about his course and background on his Carnegie Mellon University staff page. That also leads to the pretty amazing Vintage Aero paper airplanes.
Phil’s book is Better Embedded Software, available via koopman.us and (more expensively) Amazon.
Fagan Inspection
Videos of robots being stressed
Also: Embedded.fm Jan 28th Party RSVPs on Eventbrite
Jan 4, 2017
182: Sorry Little Diodes
Chris (@stoneymonster) and Elecia (@logicalelegance) talk with each other about about a party, listener emails, and assorted questions.
RSVP for the Embedded.fm party!
The Embedded Blog is at embedded.fm/blog. Chris Svec wrote a post about picking a processor platform.
Don’t Panic Geocast episode with Elecia
Elecia’a book: Making Embedded Systems
Compiler explorer is GodBolt.org
Imposter Syndrome: episode #24 is all about. And you might find #78 with Chris Svecrelevant. Also: Adam Savage talking about overcoming self-doubt.
The RSS feed for all of our shows (not only the most recent 100) is http://makingembeddedsystems.libsyn.com/rss
We have a Patreon fund that buys mics for guests (plus the occasional goodie for us and our blogging team).
Crunchy Frog
RTL-SDR: Software defined radio
BaoFeng’s unusable Ham radio
ESA investigation on the Schiaparelli landing
Dec 29, 2016
181: Work on It for Ten Years
Chris Gammell (@Chris_Gammell) of The Amp Hour and Contextual Electronics joined Elecia and Chris for a holiday special Ampbedded (EmbHour?) episode.
Embedded will be having a Hats and Hacks party in Aptos, CA. You can come! RSVP on Eventbrite.
Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation
Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise
Analog Discovery vs Saleae
Embedded blog (with Andrei Chichak and Chris Svec) including a post on podcasts we listen to
Hemmingway App, useful for making writing clearer and simpler
Tweezer sets make excellent gifts
The Way Things Work Now is an update on a classic book
Flybrix is a LEGO drone platform for learning control systems and flight robotics. The founder was on Embedded #157.
Nordic nRF52
makexyz: 3D printing in your neighborhood
Fusion 360
Video of Tesla seeing two cars ahead, having an accident
The LDC1000 has never been attached to a Bluetooth sensor
Free calculus book online: Single Varia…
Dec 20, 2016
180: Chickens in Helmets
Have you ever wondered how your programming tool works? Piotr Esden-Tempski and Gareth McMullin have built the Black Magic Probe and joined the show to explain how it works.
Kickstarter for Black Magic and 1Bitsy ends December 29th. If you missed it (or need a Black Magic v2 instead of waiting for v2.1) go to the 1BitSquared Store. For more in-depth information about Black Magic, look at Gareth's github repo. For more information about the 1Bitsey dev board, look at 1bitsy.org.
Contest! Tweet to @1bitsquared.
The YouTube channel about electronic teardowns was Mike's Electric Stuff: youtube.com/user/mikeselectricstuff.
If you want to say other hellos to Piotr, try his personal account: @esden. Or you can contact Gareth via Black Magic's Gitter channel.
Embedded.fm Hats-n-Hacks party will be 2-5pm on Saturday, January 28, 2017 in Aptos, CA. More details soon, including how to RSVP.
Dec 14, 2016
179: Spaghetti Reducer
Miro Samek (@mirosamek) of Quantum Leaps spoke with us about making better state machines through actor objects and hierarchical state machines.
Miro wrote a book: Practical UML Statecharts in C/C++: Event-Driven Programming for Embedded Systems. He has an excellent YouTube channel explaining embedded concepts. We discussed his video that describes how a stack overflow works and the related in-depth post on EmbeddedGurus.com.
Elecia enjoyed his object oriented programming in C PDF for both the OO and the UML refresher.
Miro mentioned the Software Engineering Radio podcast. We mentioned our favorite podcasts blog post. Also, we talk about Jean Labrosse's recent episode of Embedded.fm.
Dec 7, 2016
178: Alexa Stop
We spoke with Chris Maury (@CMaury) about using speech recognition to interact with devices.
Note: Please turn off your Echo and Dots as we invoke Alexa a lot.
Chris is the founder of Conversant Labs. They created TinCan.ai which can help you wireframe or prototype a conversational user interface. They can also help you build Alexa Skills, though if you are so inclined, you might try it for yourself: Alexa Skills Kit.
Chris will be speaking at the O'Reilly Design Conference in San Francisco, CA in March 2017, giving a tutorial on building voice based user interfaces. You can read more from Chris on his Medium posts medium.com/@CMaury.
CMU PocketSphinx
Some of the embedded devices Elecia mentioned:
* Audeme (as heard on The Amp Hour #258)
* Grove Speech Recognizer from Seeed
* EasyVR
We haven't gotten embedded.fm (or any podcast) to work with Alexa but we aren't sure why. Have you?
Nov 30, 2016
30: Eventually Lightning Strikes (Repeat)
After a few announcements, we replayed the episode where James Grenning told us about Test Driven Development.
Note: the contest mentioned in the show is over. However, the SparkFun TinkerKit contest ends December 9th so you still have time to win something!
Other announcements include:
* Elecia was on the Don't Panic GeoCast (#97)
* You can send us email by hitting the contact link on embedded.fm
* This does not count for our Patreon because it is a repeat
Nov 22, 2016
177: Boba Fett Fell Down
Chris and Elecia answer listener emails on-air.
Patreon
Embedded.fm blog
SparkFun Tinker Kit
BB8 Sphero
Jewelbots (from #173)
Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction by Philip E. Tetlock and Dan Gardner
The Wild Robot by Peter Brown
Nov 16, 2016
176: Let's Go Light It Up
Toni Klopfenstein (@ToniCorinne) joined us to talk about what it is like working at SparkFun(@SparkFun) and why open source hardware is important.
Open Source Hardware Association (OSHWA.org) has a certification program for open source hardware projects and products.
Some of the SparkFun products and posts we talked about:
* Tinker Kit
* SparkPunk Sound Kit
* FLiR Dev Kit with its hookup guide and neat video
* Digital handpan (electronic drum) blog post
* Inflatable Friends (balloon robot) blog post
Open Source Hardware Summit was in Portland, OR in October.
Hackaday Superconference was in Pasadena, CA in November. Their site has the 2015 videos available. (There was an Embedded.fm show about it too!)
Nov 9, 2016
175: How Hard Could It Be?
Jean Labrosse of Micrium (@Micrium) spoke with us about writing a real time operating system (uC/OS), building a business, and caring about code quality.
Take a look at the uC/OS operating systems (available for free to makers) and Jean's excellent and free RTOS books (it was the Kinetis one that talks about the medical process). Also, check out the uCProbe which integrates with your debugger to replace some logic analyzer and oscilloscope features.
Jean's blog about detecting stack overflows: part 1 and part 2.
Brother to Brother by Gino Vanelli
Nov 2, 2016
174: It's Not Weird
We spoke to Evan Shapiro, CTO and cofounder of Knit Health (@KnitHealth), about baby monitors, IoT security, neural nets, and professional poker.
The Knit Health Kickstarter ends November 17, 2016.
Evan recommended Google Tensor Flow and Python's Theano for an introduction to machine learning. (If those sound familiar it is because Kat Scott mentioned them as well.) Evan also suggested that if you'd like to know more about the history of neural nets, check out this post by Audrey Korenkov.
If you'd like a gentle introduction, check out a Narwhal's Guide to Bayes' Rule.
Evan mentioned some videos he did about poker, they are on Card Runners (NOTE: it is a paid site with free tastes).
Final quote was from Neil Gaiman's excellent Graveyard Book.
Oct 26, 2016
173: Everything's Amazing
George Stocker (@gortok) spoke with us about software, Jewelbots (@Jewelbots) and learning embedded systems to ship the product.
Elecia's book is Making Embedded Systems. George also recommended Getting Started with BLE and Programming Pearls.
The processor we talked about was the Nordic nRF51, a BLE system on a chip.
Oct 19, 2016
172: Tell Forth You Me Please
James Cameron of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) tells us about Forth, science fiction, and laptops.
We have some tickets for ARM's mbed Connect conference is Oct 24, 2016 in Santa Clara. Will you be in the area? Want to go? Contact us if you want one of our free tickets! (There are still some tickets remaining.)
One Laptop Per Child is one.laptop.org.
Some getting started information on Forth: Mitch Bradley's Forth and Open Firmware Lessons
James has been writing about putting C Forth on a Teensy (more on the Teensy from the creator's site). He also has a post on using Forth to snoop the Milo Champions Band's BLE.
James is Quozl on most sites that require a unique ID (such as Github: https://github.com/quozl). This is from a book called Quozl by Alan Dean Foster. The other older-sci-fi reference was to the Pern books by Anne McCaffery, specifically to the White Dragon.
Oct 12, 2016
171: Perfectly Good Being Square and Green
Saar Drimer of Boldport (@boldport) spoke with us about the crossover of art to electronics and building a business around it.
Monthly, the Boldport Club ships aesthetically-pleasing electronics kits. We discussed past projects include The Lady and Touchy on the show. The seahorse board is on the blog.
Micah Scott (@scanlime) has entrancing videos of putting together the first club project (Pease) and second one (Superhero).
Saar uses PCBMode to create his circuits. He also wrote the tool. It is open source.
Cratejoy is used for the sales and shipping logistics.
Oct 4, 2016
170: Electron Gnomes
Elecia tries to get Chris to do her homework in preparation for her "Embedded Software: The Tricky Parts" presentation at IEEE-Computer Society meeting in San Jose, CA on Oct 11, 2016. If you register, you can attend, in person or online! And for free!
We have some tickets for ARM's mbed Connect conference is Oct 24, 2016 in Santa Clara. Will you be in the area? Want to go? Contact us if you want one of our free tickets! (There are still some tickets remaining.) Also: their unit test framework is GreenTea (not whatever Elecia said).
Sep 28, 2016
53: Being a Grownup Engineer (Repeat)
After a few new announcements, we replayed the episode where Jack Ganssle shared his wisdom on being a good embedded software engineer (hint: it takes discipline).
The new announcements include:
* Book giveaway contest deadline Oct 1st
* ARM's mbed Connect conference is Oct 24th
* IEEE CS talk by Elecia
* iRobot has internships (and other jobs), check their job site and if you want to apply, email csvec.
Jack's website is filled with great essays and new videos. He's also written the Art of Designing Embedded Systems and The Embedded Systems Dictionary (with Michael Barr).
We covered a lot of ground, here are some of the highlights:
* Spark language
* Capers Jones on high quality software and associated statistics
* Joel on Software test for good teams
* LDRA unit test tool
* James Grenning's Test Driven Development for Embedded C
Sep 21, 2016
169: Sit on Top of a Volcano
John Leeman (@geo_leeman) spoke with us about geophysics and associated technology.
John is one of the hosts of the Don't Panic GeoCast (@dontpanicgeo, iTunes). Some episodes you may like:
* What if you calibrated your candles differently?
* Out of the Country (Brad Jolive on moon rocks)
* "Rock Drills and Beer" Undersampled Radio
John is teaching a course at Penn State called Techniques of Geoscientific Experimentation. The information and textbook is online! It uses the SparkFun Inventor's Kit.
John has a website with a blog. He has some Cheerson CX-10 tiny drone posts (my favorite, also Alvaro's repo and my posts). John also has a consulting company: Leeman GeoPhysical.
Python! Lots of Python was discussed.
* Jupyter notebooks (here is a good tutorial)
* Example of reproducing a figure from a paper
* John's friction model (repo and talk he gave about it at SciPy2016)
* Neat SciPy talk about open textbooks
* SciPy is a Python conference in Austin, TX in July…
Sep 14, 2016
168: Put Your Gear on the Ping Pong Table
Briana Morey from MC10 (@mc10inc) spoke with us about stretchable electronics, Tesla coils and lasers. She works at MC10, creators of the L'Oreal My UV Patch as well as the BioStampRC.
MC10 is hiring! They are in Lexington, MA, US. The embedded software position is filled already but the EE position is still open.
Briana mentioned an excellent science fiction book she'd read recently: Too Like Lightning by Ada Palmer.
Sep 7, 2016
167: All Aliens Are Shiny
Chris and Elecia chat about Bayes Rule, aliens, bit-banging, VGA, and unit testing.
Elecia is working on A Narwhal's Guide to Bayes' Rule.
ACM has a code of software engineering ethics
Toads have trackers (NPR story)
An introduction to bit-banging SPI (Arduino, WS2812)
We talked to James Grenning extensively about testing on 30: Eventually Lightning Strikes (and about his excellent book Test Driven Development for Embedded C). We spoke with James again on 109: Resurrection of Extreme Programming. We also talked about unit testing with Mark Vandervoord on 103: Tentacles of the Kraken.
A neat TED Talk involving octo-copters, still four short of dodecahedracopter.
Neat Z80 based very minimal computer kit
Aug 31, 2016
166: Sardine Tornado
Bob Apthorpe (@arclight) spoke with us about software, nuclear engineering, and improv.
Bob is giving away three books! Send in your guess by October 1, 2016. One entry per person. (More info below.)
Hackaday SuperCon is Nov 5-6, in Pasadena, CA.
Bob's long languishing blog is overscope.cynistar.net.
Peep (The Network Aualizer): Monitoring Your Network with Sound
Safety-I and Safety-II: The Past and Future of Safety Management
Now! The books you may win!
Atomic Accidents by James Mahaffrey, someone who knows the technology and history and does a fantastic job explaining complex failures in an engaging way without resorting to fear-mongering and hyperbole. (Guess Elecia's number for this one.)
Safeware by Nancy Leveson, may be 20 years old, it's still full of amazing insights for delivering safe, reliable systems and ways of looking at the organizational contexts in which these systems are built and used. Even if you aren't developing safety-critical systems, it's a fantastic re…
Aug 16, 2016
165: When People See a Button
Shimona Carvalho (@shimonkey) joins us to talk about user interface design in embedded systems. Then we talk about internationalization and localization. Then photography.
Shimona's website is shimonacarvalho.com and her Flicker account is shimonkey.
For an introduction to user interface design, Shimona recommended The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman.
Internationalization and localization were delved in far deeper in episode 26: The Tofu Problem. Some of the material from that will be on the embedded.fm/blog this week.
We mentioned an auxiliary, secret RSS feed that goes all the way back to episode one. (Some notes haven't been filled in yet).
We're also on Youtube now.
Aug 9, 2016
164: Heatsink in a Shoebox
Christopher White resurrects an Apple ][+ with his brother Matthew White. This is a show about the software Christopher and Matthew wrote when they were kids and the hardware they wrote it on.
Matthew's favorite fictional robot (we should have asked): Venus Probe from Six Million Dollar Man. We did ask about his favorite fictional computer and there is a video for that too.
Apple ][+ Wiki
Timex Sinclair Z81 Wiki
Eric Schlaepfer's Monster 6502
Grant's 6502 Computer
Kerbal Space Program for the Apple ][
Elecia got to $42 in Lemonade Stand by the end of the show
Matthew's Nebula Wars and Eye of Eternal Death BASIC games circa 1985 and 1981 respectively.
If you feel like it, you can try out an Apple ][ in your web browser, with tons of disks available at the Internet Archive or in a Javascript Emulator.
Elecia's book is Making Embedded Systems.
Aug 4, 2016
126: Live From Supercon
Elecia went to Hackaday's SuperCon, got to announce the Hackaday Prize 2015 winners, then talked to the organizers about their conference.
The guests this week were (in order of appearance):
* Amber Cunningham
* Dan Hienzsch (115: Datasheeps)
* Adam Fabio
* Brian Benchoff
* Aleksandar Bradic
* Sophi Kravitz (77: Goldfish, Fetch My Slippers! and 91: Save Us from Astronauts)
* Mike Szczys (69: Look at this Entire Aisle of Standoffs)
Tamagotchi Hive
Adam promised us a list of contributors to the goodie bag. Here it is!
* NFCRing.com
* OSHpark
* Wicked Device
* Seeed Studio
* Pololu
* Parallax
* No Starch Press
* Microchip
* Nanomagnetics (http://nanodots.com/gyro.html)
* The Hackaday Store
Aug 3, 2016
163: Syringes That Give You Cake
Nadya Peek (@nadyapeek) joined us to talk about making machines that build things.
Nadya's website is infosyncratic.nl, which includes her blog. Nadya's dissertation defense on Making Machines that Make: Object-Oriented Hardware Meets Object-Oriented Software was standing room only.
MIT Center For Bits and Atoms, which studies "how to turn data into things, and things into data."
Mods.cba.mit.edu
Machines that Make: MTM.cba.mit.edu
Jul 26, 2016
162: I Am a Boomerang Enthusiast
Valve's Alan Yates (@vk2zay) spoke with us about the science and technology of virtual reality.
Elecia looked at the iFixIt Teardown of the HTC Vive system as she was unwilling to take apart Christopher's system.
Alan shared some of his other favorite reverse engineering efforts: Doc OK’s Lighthouse videos, documentation on github by nairol, and a blog by Trammell Hudson.
Alan's sensor circuit diagrams were on twitter: SparkleTree sensor circuit (think simplified) and the closer-to-production Lighthouse sensor.
Make Magazine talked about Valve's R&D Lab. This is important in case you want to work at Valve (they are currently hiring for EE but if that doesn't describe you and you want to work there, apply anyway).
Alan also has a website (vk2zay.net) though it doesn't see much updating right now.
Jul 19, 2016
161: Magenta Doesn't Exist
Kat Scott (@kscottz) gave us an introduction to computer vision. She co-authored the O'Reilly Python book Practical Computer Vision with SimpleCV: The Simple Way to Make Technology See. The book's website is SimpleCV.org. Kat also suggested looking at the samples in the OpenCV Github repo.
To integrate computer vision into a robot or manufacturing system, Kat mentioned ROS (Robot Operating System, ROS.org).
Buzzfeed had an article about SnapChat Filters.
Kat works at Planet. And they are still hiring.
Jul 12, 2016
160: Chowdered up the Spoilboard
Daniel Hienzsch (@rheingoldheavy) and Majenta Strongheart (majentastronghe_art) gave us suggestions on setting up a home shop and information on setting up a maker space.
Daniel is the resident engineer at SupplyFrame's Pasadena Design Lab. He still the owns and runs RheingoldHeavy.com, a company devoted to educational boards, as we talked about on episode 115: Datasheeps.
Majenta's web page is MajentaStrongheart.com. We talked more about School of the Art Institute of Chicago with Sarah Petkus in 142: New and Improved Appendages.
Jul 5, 2016
159: Flying Rainbow Children
Chris and Elecia talk to each other about compiler optimizations, bit banging I2C, listener emails, and small-town parades.
Games to learn/play with assembly languages include The Human Resource Machine by Tomorrow Corporation and TIS-100 by Zachtronics.
We've been enjoying the Embedded Thoughts blog. And Chris is reading Practical Electronics for Inventors and liking it.
We talked a little about Interview.io's adventure in voice changing.
Shirts are gone for awhile. New logo stickers are available at StickerMule if you'd like to support and share the show.
Jun 28, 2016
158: Programming Is Too Difficult for Humans
Fabien Chouteau (@DesChips) of AdaCore (@AdaCoreCompany) spoke with us about theMake with Ada Programming Competition.
Giveaway boards are GONE.
The Ada programming language (wiki) is interesting in that it was designed for safety critical embedded systems (actually designed, requirements doc and everything!). The Ada Information Clearinghouse has a nice list of tutorials and books as does the very helpful Make with Ada Getting Started page. Elecia's favorite was Inspirel's Ada on Cortex.
Some neat projects in Ada that we mentioned on the show:
* Fabien's CNC Controller (with code in github)
* Tetris on a Smart Watch (with a formal proof via SPARK)
* Nano drone flight controller (with formal proof via SPARK)
The platforms supported in the contest are on the Getting Started page but you can expand that by looking at the SVD files in the AdaCore drivers on github. (Also, SVD files are neat.) One of the platforms already supported is the Crazyflie nanodrone.
Jun 22, 2016
157: Explosion of Multicopters
Robb Walters of Flybrix (@flybrix) spoke with us about LEGO-based drones. We graciously let him leave with all his hardware. This time.
For a limited time, you can get an Embedded.fm tshirt: teespring.com/embedded-fm. Order by the end of June or miss out. (More info about the shirts.)
You can order your Flybrix kit and or read their controller code on github (or their controller app code).
Robb mentioned a C++ book he liked, it was Effective Modern C++: 42 Specific Ways to Improve Your Use of C++11 and C++14 by Scott Meyers.
He also noted LEGO bricks resale sites: Brickowl and Bricklink. LEGO Digital Designer looks like a fun way to design builds.
Cascade PID controllers are on Wikipedia (though I found this tutorial a little easier).
The congratulations offered at the top of the show were to Meshpoint.me for winning the Best Humanitarian Tech of the Year at the Europas Conference.
Jun 16, 2016
156: Black Knight 2000
Jeri Ellsworth (@jeriellsworth) spoke with us about the latest developments at CastAR, hiring engineers, and her favorite engine.
Embedded.fm T-Shirts are available until the end of June on Teespring (more info).
CastAR is making an augmented reality system. They are in Palo Alto, CA, USA and they arehiring. They work with Playground.
Jeri was last on Embedded.fm episode 23: Go For Everything I Want.
Jun 8, 2016
155: Foot-Seeking Bullet
Jonathan Bradshaw spoke with us about working with hardware engineers, schematic reviews, and FPGAs.
At the end of the podcast, Jonathan made a pitch for folks to submit proposals for the IEEE Southern Power Electronics Conference in Auckland in December.
The FPGA boards Elecia mentioned were the XLR8 board and the Papillio platform (more on the latter in show #66).
By the way, The Amp Hour is our “enemy podcast” but we actually like their show quite a lot. It is a joke. But do feel free to tweet their shameless advertising tweet with the link replaced with one to our show.
And weta are neat! (Image, wiki)
Jun 2, 2016
154: Physics Is a Big Pain
Jeff Keyzer (@MightyOhm) joined us to talk about consumer manufacturing, how to solder, and having a full time job and a kit company.
Jeff's blog is on MightyOhm.com. The Geiger Counter kit is available atMightyOhm.com/geiger. The really, really useful Soldering Is Easy comic book isMightyOhm.com/soldercomic.
At Valve, Jeff worked on the Steam Controller (hardware specs at bottom of the Valve page or for sale on Amazon). There is also a neat video showing the manufacturing automation in action.
We mentioned Glowforge, Dan Shapiro was on episode 125 (and if you are going to buy one, please consider using our referral link!)
Elecia and Chris have a Hakko FX-888 soldering iron. Jeff suggests Kester 186 flux which you can get in smaller-than-giant containers on eBay. No, not the pen on Amazon. Or maybe the MG Chemicals 835 (which is in little bottles on Amazon). Flux seems like a very personal thing.
May 25, 2016
153: Space Nerf Gun
Patrick Yeon of Planet Labs spoke with us about making satellites.
We discussed a method of using orientation to control drag to control speed. While Patrick wasn't sure what he could say about GPS receivers on satellites, another site describes them as part of the flock.
Sign up to get access to the huge Open California data set.
Planet has many applications and their blog shows off some interesting finds, such as identifying illegal gold mines encroaching on rainforests, quantifying ports with computer vision, counting trees and classifying agriculture crops, fire mapping, and cloud detection.
They are still hiring, apply using the email embeddedfm at planet.com will earn us (err, not you) more free tshirts.
May 18, 2016
152: Dodecahedrocopter.com
Chris and Elecia chat about hobbies and respond to listener feedback and questions.
Chris was on an episode of Let's Drone Out, you can listen to it here or search in your favorite podcast platform. It is recorded and broadcast live every Thursday at 8 P.M. (UTC+1) onPowering On.
Chris' new quadcopter is a Vortex 285. It runs Clean Flight, an open source flight controller software package.
While we had various opinions about RTOSs, we were both interested in the one Alvaro suggested to us: Zephyr Project.
As for other embedded podcasts, of course you know about The Amp Hour. And we had Saron of CodeNewbie podcast on, that show is mostly software and people. How aboutMacrofab Engineering? Or O'Reilly's HW podcast?
May 11, 2016
151: Captain Stochastic
Paul Sidenblad spoke to us about his engineering career, starting off with GE's work on theGambit spy satellite.
Google Protobufs
Elecia read Eye in the Sky: The Story of the CORONA Spy Satellites a few years ago and remembers liking it, though this was the first time the information was useful.
May 4, 2016
150: Sad Country Song
Torie Charvez spoke with us about what it takes to start and run your own business in the US. We talked about starting your own consulting company, selling your latest gadget, and all of the bookkeeping, tax issues, and details involved.
Torie's company is Tax Goddess. The write-off publication she mentioned is on the IRS site isChapter 8 of Publication 535.
Elecia mentioned her Snow White's Guide to Your First Stock Options.
Apr 27, 2016
149: Flamethrowers Aside
Craig Smith (@OpenGarages) spoke with us about hacking the software in cars.
His book is the Car Hackers Handbook. There is a 40% off coupon toward the end of the show.
OpenGarages is Craig's site to improve and encourage hacking. Some tools he recommends for getting started are USB2CAN and CANTact.
An older (shorter) version of the handbook is on OpenGarages.
I Am The Cavalry (iamthecavalry.org) is an excellent site for learning more about security.CERT.org is also good.
Theia Labs is Craig's company.
Apr 21, 2016
148: A Minimum of Two Poops
Saron Yitbarek (@saronyitbarek) spoke with us about Code Newbie, a site that help people learn to program and about the Code Newbie podcast.
We mentioned Paul Ford's Code Newbie episode discussing his Bloomberg issue code.
Saron also has a personal blog which has her post I am not a tinkerer.
Saron spoke on Punching Your Feelings in the Face at ELA Conf 2015.
Apr 13, 2016
147: Bolts for Tuco
Micah Elizabeth Scott (@scanlime) joined us to talk about her new art and engineering projects.
Micah's site is misc.name/ and her YouTube channel is micahjd. She launched a Patreon page.
Wiggleport has its own site (wiggleport.org) and github (github.com/wiggleport). Check out the art in the repo! The Bela project on kickstarter has some overlap.
Micah will be keynoting the 2016 Open Source Hardware Summit in Portland in early October.
Her Eclipse project (video) was at the NEAT exhibition at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, CA.
Micah has been on Embedded.fm before: 101: Taking Apart the Toaster (mostly aboutCoastermelt) and 41: Pink Universes Die Really Quickly (mostly about FadeCandy).
Micah mentioned Boldport and the kit-of-the-month club. (Video of her building the first one!) Also: the BigClive channel on YouTube.
Thank you to Planet.com for sponsoring the contest. Check out Planet.com/careers!
Apr 7, 2016
146: The Loyal Opposition
Philip Freidin (@PhilipFreidin) spoke with us about his BLE platform OSHChip, debuggers, and consulting.
Planet Labs is sponsoring a contest! Hit the contact link to enter. Also check out their careers page and apply to embeddedfm@planet.com.
Both the OSHChip and the CMSIS-DAP SWD programming module are on Philip's Tindie store. While Keil is the suggested compiler for now, you can also use mbed (tutorial). The system is wholly open source, you can find everything at github.com/oshchip. (Philip gave anHDDG talk about OSHChip; we didn't talk about it but I thought it was interesting.)
Philip's company is Fliptronics. Under Tips and Tricks, that site has his advice on consulting.
Mar 31, 2016
145: This Is Embedded
Kelly McEvers (@kellymcevers) joins us to talk about the definition of embedded. Kelly McEvers is one of the hosts of All Things Considered, NPR's award-winning afternoon news magazine. She is also the host of a new podcast called Embedded which takes a story from the news and goes much deeper into it.
Her Embedded podcast launches on March 31st. Subscribe now on iTunes, listen onNPR.com or your favorite podcast app.
Kelly's Diary of a Bad Year: A War Correspondent's Dilemma is an amazing listen.
Kelly mentioned her interview of a drone pilot, Lt. Col. T. Mark McCurley, author of Hunter Killer. She also interviewed Sarah Pennypacker, author of Pax.
Elecia does not squee on air. But it was a near thing.
Mar 23, 2016
144: Asking For Clippy
Christopher and Elecia chat about the Hackaday prize, Unity class (and their games), the blog, hams, and IDEs.
Embedded.fm blog posts we discussed:
* Chris wrote about ham radio practice tests and his plane's maiden flight.
* Elecia is working her way through her book about taking apart toys.
* Chris Svec is taking a microprocessors approach in Embedded Systems 101.
* And Andrei's current Embedded Wednesdays posts have been about number format and accelerometer output.
Sign up for the Embedded.fm newsletter to get blog content in your email box.
Hackaday Prize! Yay! Sign up early and often.
Chris and Elecia have been taking a Unity course on Udemy (pricing becomes more sensible after April 1). Elecia's game is live for the next 30 days, you can play it from your computer's browser (but not Chrome). Audio "enhances" the experience. Also: you were warned.
Atomic Game Engine is another game engine but open source.
Justin has 8 reels of 800 of Atmel AT32UC3A3256S-ALVR. Let u…
Mar 16, 2016
143: I'm Thinking of Unicorns
Dan Luu (@danluu) spoke with us about processor features, startups vs large companies, error handling, and computer science research.
Dan's blog is danluu.com. Some posts we talked about:
* CPU features since 1980
* Working at Startups vs. Large Companies
* Recurring Postmorten Lessons
* Efficacy of Computer Science Research Areas
Dan mentioned some conference proceedings he monitors. For computer architecture:
* ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA):http://isca2016.eecs.umich.edu/
* IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Microprogramming & Microarchitecture (MICRO): http://www.microarch.org/
* High Performance Computer Architecture (HPCA): http://www.hpcaconf.org/
For software engineering:
* International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE): http://www.icse-conferences.org/
* Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE): http://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/fse2016/
He also mentioned Operating System Design and Implementation OSDI: htt…
Mar 9, 2016
142: New And Improved Appendages
Sarah Petkus offers to let her robot lick Christopher's leg. Christopher agrees reluctantly once we determine the saliva will be anti-bacterial hand sanitizer.
Sarah is a kinetic artist and some of her projects include a robot army (built your own from parts printed out or purchased at robot-army.com), Noodlefeet, and Carl (the flamingo of pendulum inversion). Her Zoness.com site is an umbrella for her drawn and robotic art. Specifically, you may enjoy her webcomic Gravity Roads, her YouTube channel, and/or herRobotic Arts blog.
Some other topics we discussed:
* Sarah got into mechatronics at her time as SAIC.
* Festo's air jellyfish on youtube
* Algodoo.com 2d physics simulator
* Woodgears.ca for 3d printable gears
Also, please check out our new embedded.fm/blog or if you prefer email updates, sign up atembedded.fm/subscribe.
Mar 2, 2016
141: Malevolent and Trying to Trick You
Julia Evans (@b0rk) spoke with us about using profile analysis to debug programs.
Her PyCon 2015 talk was Systems Programming as a Swiss Army Knife (video).
Julia's blog is jvns.ca. Some of the posts we discussed include:
* Have High Expectations for Computers
* How I Got Better at Debugging
* perf top: An Awesome Way to Spy on CPU Usage
Julia's favorite conference to speak at is Bang Bang Con in New York City, May 7-8, 2016. Coincidentally, the call for proposals is open.
Also, please check out the Embedded.fm/blog!
Feb 24, 2016
140: Physics Is the Same Everywhere
Andrew "Bunnie" Huang spoke with us about manufacturing in China, writing books, and crowdfunding.
Bunnie's new book is The Essential Guide to Electronics in Shenzhen. It is available via crowdsupply and the price goes from $30 to $35 when pre-ordering ends on March 17, 2016.
Bunnie's blog is at www.bunniestudios.com, many of his professional projects can be found at www.kosagi.com including more information about the Novena open source laptop.
Hacking the XBox is available for free from No Starch Press.
Feb 17, 2016
139: Easy to Add Blood Splatter
Andrei Chichak and Chris Svec join us to talk about our new blog: Embedded.fm/blog (!!).
Andrei was on 114: Wild While Loops, about error handling, as well 99: You Can Say A Boat, about MISRA-C. Andrei has been teaching Embedded Wednesdays, an embedded systems class for the Edmonton New Technology Society. It uses the STM32F401C-Discoveryboard. His course materials are on his site (chichak.ca).
Chris was on 78: Happy Cows, about empathy driven development. He's also working on a different embedded systems introduction (Embedded Software Engineering 101). His blog ischrissvec.com.
Our new blog will include their coursework, excepts from Elecia's new book on taking apart toys, project notes from Christopher, and various other news.
Feb 10, 2016
138: Quit Yer Whining
Chris (@stoneymonster) and Elecia (@logicalelegance) answer listener questions about BASIC and their meet-cute story. (Sadly those are unrelated. That would have been cute.)
Dennis Jackson at Airware is looking for a senior EE and an EE technician. Contact us and we'll connect you to Dennis so he knows to look out for you. Dennis' episode was 94: Don't Be Clever about drones, simple code, and learning.
As for other interviews, Elecia was on The Amp Hour and The Engineering Commons Podcast. Elecia and Chris were both on The Amp Hour's 256th show.
Feb 3, 2016
137: Pausing to Think
Dan Saks answers many questions about C++ in embedded systems: where it works, where it doesn't, and a path to getting started.
Dan Saks is the founder and president of Saks & Associates. He was a columnist for The C/C++ Users Journal, Embedded Systems Design and several other publications. He also served as secretary of the ANSI and ISO C++ standards committee in its early years.
We touched on some of his articles:
* Poor reasons for rejecting C++
* Preventing dynamic allocation
* Calling constructors with placement new
Andrei suggested Sams Teach Yourself C++ in One Hour a Day, Seventh Edition by Siddhartha Rao as a good primer for experienced C programmers reluctantly learning C++.
Like robots? Check out the job postings at iRobot. If you like what you see, email Chris Svec. (Yes, the guy who was on 78: Happy Cows.)
Contest for Making Embedded Systems will end Feb 5, 2016.
Jan 27, 2016
136: Let's Try Out Some Broccoli
Inventor and Youtube-er, Simone Giertz (@SimoneGiertz) tells us about building robots to "help" her daily life.
Simone's YouTube Channel. Some of the videos discussed in the show:
* Chopping Machine VLOG and its TV commercial (Also: the servo motors used)
* Listener Feedback with TENS machine
* Wake up machine
Simone's blog, with additional robot build details is at simonegiertz.com.
For relaxation, Simone visits the Hello Denizen YouTube channel and watches hamsters eating gourmet meals. She also mentioned her preferred Reddit feed.
Like robots? Check out the job postings at iRobot. If you like what you see, email Chris Svec. (Yes, the guy who was on 78: Happy Cows.)
Contest for Making Embedded Systems will end Feb 5, 2016.
Jan 21, 2016
135: No More Yoda Heads
Anh Bui, Vice President of @Benetech Labs, joined us to discuss using technology for good.
Benetech is most widely known for Bookshare, an online library for people with print disabilities. Note that this is only open to people with print disabilities per the Chafee Amendment (copyright exceptions with cause). There are some public domain books you can search through on the site.
Martus is another of Benetech's core programs, in their human rights and civil liberties program. It is an open source, secure information collection and management tool.
Poet Image Description Tool is a Benetech tool to aid in making visuals more accessible to everyone.
Some accessibility guidelines and techniques:
* W3 Web design accessibility
* Apple's many accessibility resources
* POUR (Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust) website design article
Enabling The Future is the group that 3D prints prosthetic limbs.The Dean Kamen water filtration system is called Slingshot.
Hackaday Prize…
Jan 13, 2016
134: Diet-Friendly Dog Food
Eric Hankinson (@Kumichou) tells us about the new embedded software components ofContextual Electronics. There is a 10% coupon announced in the show, good until June.
CE uses the ST-Nucleo-F030R8 board.
Eric's blog is www.erichankinson.com and his day job is at LeanDog.
The Amp Hour episode with Chris and Elecia is 281: Crossovers and Call-ins
Sealand
Jan 6, 2016
133: Plenty of Room in Your Ear
Christopher (@stoneymonster) and Elecia (@logicalelegance) inflict lightning round on each other, talk about their new favorite toys, and get momentarily serious about performance reviews.
Elecia is looking for a datasheet for the SunPlus SPHE8104GW. Not the 8200. This is not something Google-able. It probably requires knowing the right person, but if you do (or if you are the right person), please help.
Tickle is the IOS app to program the Sphero BB-8 (and many other robots) in the kids programming language Scratch
Laser Stars Indoor Light Show
Automatic: BLE car monitoring
The Cheerson CX-10 is the base model quadcopter Elecia and Chris have been playing with. They flew a CX-10C with its 0.3MP video camera off a cliff at beach (but it didn't record the video).
Elecia's self-evaluation for 2014 year is on her blog
Python library for mashing binaries into other forms is IntelHex
Elecia couldn't find the .map file scripts she was thinking of though one on stackoverflow was prett…
Dec 30, 2015
132: Destruction Is Easy
FIRST Robotics is way to get students of all ages into robotics. Former participant and dedicated mentor, Michael Hill (@Michael_A_Hill) tells us about FIRST and how we can get involved.
Official site: FIRSTInspires.org which also has a list of volunteer roles and qualifications
Forums are at ChiefDelphi.com
This year's theme is FIRST STRONGHOLD and was designed in collaboration with Disney. There is a trailer on YouTube (expect castles!).
One of the NI control units is the RoboRIO (not the nearly-already-a-robot RIO Robot we linked to initially, thank you Alan Anderson!)
Micheal's team is Innovators Robotics.
Chris and Elecia will be helping out on The Amp Hour call in show, recording January 6,2015. If you'd like to chat, hit our contact link or email feedback@theamphour.com. Please include your name, location, Skype name and what you hope to discuss on air.
Dec 24, 2015
131: Carve Me a Duck
Sarah and Abi Hodsdon speak with us about being a maker family.
Sarah's site and blog are Sarahndipitous Designs, her twitter handle is @sarahndipitous.
The online K-12 school they use is Connections Academy.
Making Makers by AnnMarie Thomas is a book about encouraging kids toward making.
Backyard Ballistics by William Gurstelle is an excellent addition to any library.
Giwishes is a massive global scavenger hunt.
Some learning sites the Hodsdon's recommend include:
* Code Academy
* Kahn Academy
* Instructables
For e-textiles and wearables, they recommend:
* Lynne Bruning's eTextile Lounge
* Becky Stern
* Leah Buechley's Sew Electric book
Dec 16, 2015
130: Criminal Training Camp
Alvaro Prieto (@alvaroprieto) spoke with us about laser turrets, tearing down quadcopters, flux capacitors, the moon, and culture at work.
Alvaro's blog
Alvaro's github repositories including Proto-X quadcopter information, Silta bus monitoring, and Skype video message exporter for OSX.
One of the inspirations for taking apart the Proto-X was watching Micah talk about herCoastermelt project. We talked to her about it on episode 101: Taking Apart the Toaster.
One of his reasons for going to Planet Labs was knowing Shaun Meehan, check out his Amp Hour interview.
Daemon by Daniel Suarez
Video of Supercon talk on laser shooting robots
Podcast Award nominations open in early 2016
Dec 9, 2015
129: Atoms Not Bits
We ask Matt Berggren (@technolomaniac) to envision an ideal world of product creation.
Matt's Spartan 6 FPGA shield is on the Hackaday Store. Its build process is documented on Hackaday.io. You can see Matt's other projects on Hackaday.io/matt.
Matt works for SupplyFrame.
Wishbone is the open source bus system that Elecia likened to ARM's AHB/APB.
Dec 2, 2015
128: The American Pi
Simon Monk (@simonmonk2) talks with us about zombies and writing books.
Simon has 20+ books out, check out his Amazon author page or his web page for a full listing (simonmonk.org). Some you might want sooner rather than later include:
The Maker's Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse: Defend Your Base with Simple Circuits, Arduino, and Raspberry Pi
Hacking Electronics
30 Arduino Projects for the Evil Genius
Kits for building some of the projects from Simon's books can be found at Monk Makes. (@monkmakes).
Nov 25, 2015
127: Chicken Equals Duck Plus One
🐔=🦃+1 (or Why isn't there a duck emoji?)
Christopher and Elecia talk about languages, twitter, listener emails, and Star Wars.
Podcast Awards
The Amp Hour talked about languages, they also referenced this compiler writing exercise
C alternative tokens iso646.h and an up to date C reference (Harbison and Steele)
$20 Linux board from vocore.io
Real Strawberry DNA extraction technique (Elecia forgot the soap and the salt.) fromScientific American (with real science) or in easy-to-follow picture form on genome.gov.
Nov 12, 2015
125: I Like Cheat Codes
Dan Shapiro (@danshapiro), CEO of Glowforge (@glowforge), speaks with us about laser cutters and his book, The Hot Seat.
If you succumb to the wonder of 3D laser printers, consider using our Glowforge link so you get $100 (and we get $100).
Dan's book, the one Elecia gushes about, is The Hot Seat: The Startup CEO Guidebook. Some of that information is also found in Dan's blog.
If you are in the Seattle area, Glowforge is hiring! Check out their jobs page.
We didn't talk much about Robot Turtles, a game to teach programming principles to preschoolers.(Also on Amazon.)
There is another interesting interview with Dan at Tested.com.
Nov 4, 2015
124: Please Don't Light Yourself On Fire
Windell Oskay (@Oskay) of Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories (@EMSL) told us about co-authoring a book: The Annotated Build-It-Yourself Science Laboratory.
Some great EMSL links:
* A signed copy of Windell's book
* Dis-integrated 555 timer kit
* Candle flicker LEDs
* Food in specimen jars EMSL blog post
* Spherical pen plotter (EggBot Pro!)
The book Chris brought up was Thinking Physics.
Windell is also on Google Plus.
Contest to get Windell's signed book ends 11/13, send in your entry!
Oct 28, 2015
123: Banished from Running Linux
Bob Coggeshall (@BobCoggeshall) runs a boutique assembly house. And he co-wrote sudo. There are sandwich jokes.
Bob's business is Small Batch Assembly (@SmallBatchA). (There might be a discount on your first order near the end of the show. Maybe.) His pick and place machine is a Mancorp MC400.
Octopart's Common Parts Library
We mentioned OSHPark a few times, Laen has been on Embedded.fm: 92: Everybody Behave, Please
Boldport makes nonlinear traces (SEAHORSE!!)
Relevant XKCD panel
My Date with Drew
How did we not know about Astromech.net?
Bob's Wifi Nixie driver board (also: how Nixie tubes work)
Oct 21, 2015
122: Glue a Board to Your Resume
Chris and Elecia try out their new recording location, give advice for getting a job in embedded software, and respond to listener emails.
SparkFun's Pit of Despair is a blog post about how to create products from prototypes.
Visual Studio has plug-ins that support microprocessors, see Visual Micro.
The Guardian reports that 2016 VW models have a different defeat.
Oct 14, 2015
121: The Idea of Mojo
We spoke with Fran Blanche (@contourcorsets) of Frantone about guitar tone.
Fran has several articles and posts about space, electronics, and assorted whatnot at her design writings page. Her video blog is on YouTube.
There are many different guitar pedals you can build for yourself as a way to get a better handle on analog electronics. Elecia found these at Mammoth Electronics.
The song that was the first to have flanging was "The Big Hurt" by Toni Fisher in 1959.
Oct 1, 2015
120: Boll Weevil Eradication
Kathleen Sidenblad discusses her career through Silicon Valley, from engineer at Systems Control Inc in 1976 to VP of Engineering today.
For more about Kathy, check out this Storehouse interview.
Sep 23, 2015
119: Do Your Neighbors Have Any Idea?
Ben Krasnow of the Applied Science YouTube channel talks with us about scanning electron microscopes, generating liquid nitrogen, and cookies.
Hackaday Conference is Nov 14-15, 2015 in SF, CA! Call for proposals. (Ben and Elecia are Hackaday Prize Judges.)
Contact Ben through twitter: @BenKrasnow
Applied Science YouTube channel (and don't forget the associated Patreon). Some specific videos we talked about:
* Cookie machine
* Electron microscope scanning vinyl record
* Faraday effect (control light with magnets!)
* LED contact lens (not for the squeamish)
Other people's videos and projects:
* Brady Haran's Periodic Videos
* Veritassium channel
* Build your own waterjet
Amscope microscope and low cost hot air rework soldering station
Sep 16, 2015
118: Awesome and Frequently Useless
Morgan Allen (@captain_morgan) spoke with us about Sphero and Node.JS. This is all not-so-secretly a discussion of the BB8 robot.
Correction: Despite Elecia's repeated insistence that these are steppers, she's just wrong. The motors are DC which only makes sense in a consumer product. More details on this in a later episode.
BB8s from Amazon (probably won't arrive until next year)
More info on Elecia's teardown and talk: embedded.fm/hddg
The BB8 toy is based on Sphero (buy). They have an open SDK and a wonderful education program. Check out the clear SPRK (buy). It also has a teach-your-kids-to-program app that is pretty neat (but doesn't seem to work with BB8 yet).
Morgan has been involved with NodeBots (@nodebotsSF). They use Node.js (wiki) to send Bluetooth serial commands to Spheros. Their issues list is where new meetups are posted.
Johnny-Five is also a popular way to do computer based robotics with an Arduino (or other dev board) as a hardware intermediary.
IPFS: Distribu…
Sep 9, 2015
117: In as Much as Which
Chris and Elecia discuss listener emails and other assorted topics.
Preprocessor fun
BLE 4.2 writeup from EETimes and the FAQ from Bluetooth.org
Drones should follow existing aviation keep out standards (Nick links us to some wiki pages)
* Automatic dependent surveillance
* NOTAM
* Federal Aviation Regulations: Temporary flight restrictions
NYT Amazon culture article
Cake under a microscope
Sep 2, 2015
116: You Have to Care
Glenn Scott (@GlennCScott) spoke with us about API design and techniques for writing good software.
Glenn glossed over his bio but it is quite impressive. You can reach him via his PARC page.
PARC's Content Centric Networking home: ccnx.org which we talked about in 75: End Up in a Puppy Fight.
Literate Programming by Knuth
And the more recommended Bob Martin's books
While latest source code requires licensing, the binary version of CCN includes the LongBow tools (in user/local/parc/bin). Description of tools and doxygen docs. The LongBow getting started guide should be part of the mid-September binary release.
PARC's C Style Guide and C Function Naming Guide
Aug 26, 2015
115: Datasheeps
Daniel Hienzsch (@rheingoldheavy) spoke with us about reverse engineering a board, bypass capacitors, and serial protocols.
Rheingold Heavy is Dan's company for educational boards. The one he started with was the I2C and SPI education board (its fulfilled kickstarter page). He brought us the theGraphic Equalizer Kit and Bubble Display Experimentation Pack.
Dan's Arduino from Scratch blog series looks at the Arduino hardware in great detail.
Contextual Electronics course for learning to build boards
Chris wrote about his Photon based garage door opener on the Linker blog
TinEye for searching schematic snippets
Aug 19, 2015
114: Wild While Loops
Andrei Chichak rejoins us to discuss error handling.
Andrei's website says how to reach him or email embedded 'at' chichak.ca
Windows 10 "Something Happened" error
Hitchbot
Book Elecia mentioned: Kindness of Strangers by Mike McIntyre
Elecia's book covers logging module in Creating a System Architecture (pp 21-25)
Robots and children
Aug 13, 2015
113: A Noddy Little Program
Clive Turvey (Clive1), master of the ST Forums, talks with us about ARM cores and answering difficult technical questions for fun.
Some answers:
* NVIC Interrupts on the same pin number
* STM32F4 PWM channel 3
ST's Cortex-M7
Books (though we talked more about these being good authors, these are the ones Chris and Elecia have or want):
* The Definitive Guide to ARM Cortex-M3 and Cortex-M4 Processors, 3rd Edition (Joseph Yiu, 2013)
* The Definitive Guide to ARM Cortex-M0 and Cortex-M0+ Processors, 2nd Edition (Joseph Yiu, 2015)
* Z80 Assembly Language Programming Paperback (Lance A Leventhal, 1979)
* Programming the 6502 (Rodnay Zaks, 1979)
A bare metal Scheme interpreter for ARM.
Aug 4, 2015
112: My Brain Is My Resource
Chris (@stoneymonster) and Elecia (@logicalelegance) chat with each other about drones, listener emails, conferences, fighting robots, and moonlighting.
Elecia's Solid talk, an Introduction to Inertial Sensors is on youtube.
Washington Post article about Amazon's good drone behavior
Apple's IOS security guide (Elecia's security checklist)
Photon WiFi Module (Chris' Linker articles part one and part two)
DAB+ FM Digital Radio Development Board
Sad autonomous fighting robot video and lightning fast autonomous sumo bots video
OpenSCAD- CAD tool suggested by a listener
Elecia's conference apology
Light painting pictures (500px)
Jul 29, 2015
111: Potty Train Your Tamagotchi
Natalie Silvanovich (@natashenka) discussed reverse engineering hardware, working on security software, and the fantastic world of Tamagotchis.
Natalie's site and blog
Hardware Excuse Generator
Original CCC 2012 talk: Many Tamagotchis Were Harmed in the Making of this Presentation
CCC 2013 talk: Even More Tamagotchis Were Harmed in the Making of this Presentation
Natalie's upcoming BlackHat talk: Attacking ECMAScript Engines with Redefinition
Flash exploit article for Project Zero: One Perfect Bug: Exploiting Type Confusion in Flash
Tamagotchis are still available as are the works of Shel Silverstein (Snowball is in Falling Up).
Jul 22, 2015
110: Happiness Is a Warm Puppy
BeagleBone's Jason Kridner (@Jadon) returns to tell us about his new book.
Jason co-authored a new book: BeagleBone Cookbook: Software and Hardware Problems and Solutions (or at O'Reilly). His older book is Bad to the Bone: Crafting Electronics Systems with Beaglebone and BeagleBone Black.
Previous Embedded.fm episode 60: Fun Things You Can Make out of Beagles
BeagleBoard.org's Google Summer of Code page (including BeagleSat and underwater drones!)
Some information about putting Xenomai on a BeagleBone Black for real time response.
Chris mentioned Brillo, an alternative Google supported OS that isn't on the BBB.
Project Ara: an open source smartphone
Ardupilot: Autonomous drone piloting.
Dronecode: Drones in Linux
OpenROV: Underwater vehicles
Mars lander Beagle 2 (the Apollo 11 Lunar Module was the Eagle despite some comical confusion). [UPDATE: Listener Mark Stevens pointed out that the Apollo 10 Lunar Module was named Snoopy who was a beagle.]
TI's E2E Forums
BeagleBone G…
Jul 15, 2015
109: Resurrection of Extreme Programming
James Grenning (@jwgrenning) returns to discuss TDD, Agile, and web courses.
James was on Embedded.fm episode 30: Eventually Lighting Strikes.
James' new company is Wingman Software.
His excellent book is TDD for Embedded C.
James suggested Training From the Back of the Room! as resource to people looking to put together a class. He uses and recommends CyberDojo as a coding instruction tool.
Before Agile was Agile-for-business, it was Extreme Programming. James recommends Extreme Programming Explained.
James will be the keynote speaker at AgileDC in October.
Jul 8, 2015
108: Nebarious
Jen (@RebelbotJen) joined Chris and Elecia to discuss security, privacy, and ethics in wearable computing.
Elecia's Linker post is especially relevant this week: Device Security Checklist..
There is already a standard for privacy and security: HIPAA (Title II). While not easy to read, it is a reasonable starting place. Another good (but not quite on-point) resource is the EFF Secure Messaging Scorecard, especially if you consider your device as messaging your user (it's a metaphor, ok?). Also, read all the way to the methodology, not just the pretty checkboxes.
Mike Ryan has great explanations for how to easily crack BLE security. Video to watch. His website has more resources, papers, videos, tools.
The Embedded Systems Conference (Silicon Valley) will be held at the Santa Clara convention center July 20-22.
* Wearables and IoT Growing Up: Talking To Your Products About Security And Ethics(Jen, Wed 11am)
* Teardown: Wearing Security on Your Sleeve (mostly Jen with Elecia tell…
Jul 1, 2015
107: Until They Are Spaghetti
We talked to Craig Cook about learning embedded systems. He recently attended an embedded edX course through University of Texas.
The microcontroller and boards used in the course
Craig's next course will be Interactive Python through Coursera
As we discussed Craig's alarm clock we mentioned many parts including:
* FM Module
* ESP8266 WiFi Module
* Electric Imp (Sparkfun or Digikey, don't forget the April breakout board)
Chris has also been looking at Particle.io's Photon board for WiFi + cloud development. This will be mentioned on other shows (as well as on The Amp Hour).
Jun 24, 2015
106: I Am a Scientism
Chris and Elecia talk about satellites, survey results, and entertainment.
ESP8266 has an Arduino IDE (thanks, Karl!)
Elecia will be speaking at Solid June 25th and ESC July 22nd.
To celebrate the first 100 episodes, Elecia made a spreadsheet of all the guests and topics.
Chris read and recommended Neal Stephenson's Seveneves. He was ambivalent about the latest incarnation of battlebots.
Jun 17, 2015
105: Some Paths Are More Suicidal
Manny Wright of Cortus spoke with us about developing processor IP and how it goes from RTL to silicon.
Cortus development platform with a Xilinx Spartan and Arduino Due compatibility.
Planet Labs satellite contest winners are announced and Elecia has a cold.
Jun 10, 2015
104: Only the Paranoid Survive
Atmel’s Andreas Eieland (@AndreasMCUguy) spoke with us about low power chips and benchmarks, including tips for measuring and achieving the lowest power possible.
EEMBC has a low power benchmark: ULPBench. EETimes wrote up a great introduction to the benchmark. Atmel’s SAM-L posted some excellent numbers for ULPBench.
Chris wanted to look at processors between Cortex-M4 and phone chips. Andreas suggested the SAM7, SAM E, and Cortex-A5.
Programmable logic blocks (Look Up Tables)
Coding tips and tricks for AVR micros (most things apply for all embedded development)
App Note: Ultra Low Power Techniques
App Note: Performance Levels and Power Domains
Andreas was also on Episode 15: Robot on the Front, speaking about how the AVR processor line came to life, why there is an AVR in Arduino, and the spirit of making things.
The Planet contest ends Friday June 12 (at midnight your time). Check out their jobs and send in your contest entry.
Also, check out Elecia’s BLE Intro.
Jun 3, 2015
103: Tentacles Of the Kraken
Mark VanderVoord (@mvandervoord) spoke with us about leading open source projects and test driven development.
His site is ThrowTheSwitch.org, a good place to get started with test driven development. Get more info (and a coupon) for his course. Mark's book is Embedded Testing with Unity and CMock.
Lengthy list of unit testing frameworks for C
Why's Guide to Learning Ruby (free! with entertaining comics!)
D Lang
May 27, 2015
102: The Deadly Fluffy Bunny (With WiFi)
Charles Lohr spoke with us about $5 WiFi (ESP8266), hacking as a hobby, arcade games, and music visualization.
Updated 06/02/2015: A listener pointed out that the Arduino IDE can program the ESP8266, probably an easier setup than Charles' original article. Also, the Linker post for this show is about getting started with BLE.
Follow Charles on YouTube (or say hello on Google+ and Hackaday.io). To get you started, here are Elecia's favorites:
* High Res Wifi Signal Mapping (ESP8266)
* ColorChord 2
* Wifi Cup (ESP8266)
For more about the ESP8266:
* Charles' Hackaday write up (and github repository)
* Espressif site
* Electrodragon, Adafruit, and Sparkfun have modules
ST 9 axis inertial measurement unit LSM9DSO
May 20, 2015
101: Taking Apart the Toaster
Micah Elizabeth Scott (@scanlime) spoke with us about Coastermelt, art installations, FadeCandy, teaching electronics to artists, and mental health.
Her Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) installation is mesmerizing, some videos.
In her Coastermelt project, Micah uses the IDA disassembler.
FadeCandy is for sale at Adafruit.
Zen Photon is online, demonstrating ray tracing.
Micah's website shows her current projects.
Micah's previous Embedded.fm episode focused on FadeCandy: 41: Pink Universes Die Really Quickly.
Robot Odyssey looks awesome.
Captain Awkward is a site where you can get advice on how to say things and deal with difficult situations/people.
Micah's shop has a TypeA 3D printer (note: Tuco's favorite bolts) as well as an OtherMill.
May 6, 2015
100: Unintentional Radiator
Star Simpson (@starsandrobots) and Jen Costillo (@RebelbotJen) catch up with Elecia and Chris, discussing how hobby projects have changed over the last two years since the show started.
Jen's website: RebelBot
Star's website and weekly drone newsletter The Buzzer. Star works at Orion (formerly OnBeep).
Novena board and Star's project Balboa
ODROID
Open Cores
Crowd supply and What it took to make the Octopart reference card
Apr 29, 2015
99: You Can Say a Boat
Andrei Chichak spoke with us about MISRA-C and ethics.
Linker post: It's dangerous to go alone! Take MISRA-C
Embedded.fm listener survey (please!)
Andrei's has personal website (we failed to talk about his kite aerial photography, it is really neat though) and his company is CBF Systems.
Plum Hall C Compiler Validation
PC Lint
JPL Coding Standards for C (and the mentioned video discussing Mars Code)
ISO 26262 Automobile software standard
Cortex-R for high reliability systems (ARM's description)
National Society of Professional Engineers code of ethics and Canadian EngineeringGuidelines on the Code of Ethics
Offline, Andrei recommended two books and another podcast about MISRA:
* C Traps and Pitfalls
* Safer C
* MISRA with Johan Bezem (podcast)
Apr 22, 2015
98: Figments of My Imagination
Chris and Elecia talk about memetics, learning, and processors.
Elecia was coy about the Pasadena party May 9th and 10th, but Hackaday announced it so you can invite yourself. She will also be speaking at the Solid conference in June in SF (email for a coupon!). She'll also be at ESC-Silicon Valley in July.
Star Wars Teaser #2 and SpaceX almost-landing
BLE fun: TI's CC2640 and Nordic nRF51822 (Elecia likes the BLE Nano with the free, online mbed compiler for getting started with the nRF5122).
Everything seems to be a Cortex-M0 these days (including the aforementioned CC2640 and nRF51822). The new Atmel SAM-L series is Cortex-M0 and even more low power than usual. On the other hand, the MSP432 is low power and is a more powerful Cortex-M4 (and inexpensive dev kits!),
Elecia has a book: Making Embedded Systems. It makes a great gift.
Apr 15, 2015
97: Bubblesort Yourself
Professor Paul Fishwick joined us to talk about CS and STEM education, excellent analogies, and the crossover of art and technology.
The Linker post related to this episode managed to be reasonably topical for a change.
Paul's work:
* UT Dallas homepage
* Creative Automata blog and Modeling For Everyone blog
* TEDx talk
* Aesthetic Computing, one of his books on art and CS. Online chapter.
* Creative Automata course
* Videos
Radiolab Color Episode
Forrester System Dynamics
Max is a visual programming language for music and multimedia.
CS Unplugged is a collection of free learning activities that teach Computer Science through engaging games and puzzles that use cards, string, crayons and lots of running around.
There are many bubblesort dance videos (mindboggling) but this is the one Elecia knew about previously.
The Computer History Museum is awesome. If you are in the area, you should definitely go.
Conference and contact notes:
* There is a party/hack event…
Apr 8, 2015
96: Yarn Is Serious Business
Carrie Sundra (@AlpenglowYarn) spoke with us about doing a Kickstarter on her own… and nearly failing.
The SkeinMinder is an automation tool for small yarn businesses (and enthusiastic amateurs). When the successful Kickstarter nearly fell short, Carrie candidly wrote about it (includes a great description of the economies of scale).
Carrie’s yarn company is Alpenglow Yarn. You can use the contact page there to ask for electrical engineering help as well. Carrie is active on Instagram and her blog is a blend of crafts and engineering.
Ravelry is the social media site for knitters and crocheters (requires free account to see anything)
The insanely popular Potato Salad Kickstarter.
Apr 1, 2015
95: The Elon Musk of Earth
This week we discuss lasers, internet of things, and static electricity. Our extremely opinionated guest has a lot to say, including some scatological humor.
The associated Linker post went up early for this one, please check it out.
Scary robot litter box
Mar 25, 2015
94: Don't Be Clever
The linker post for this episode is Be Excellent to Each Other.
Dennis Jackson spoke with us about drones (and Airware), simple code, and learning.
Hobbyist drones and UAVs on Amazon: tiny and cheap, medium (Christopher's gift), andplease-I'm-drooling-right-now. Only the last one may be an Airware platform (Dennis could neither confirm nor deny).
Airware's breakdown of proposed FAA rules
Simple code:
* Cyclomatic complexity
* Chris Svec's episode on empathy driven design (he'll also be at ESC Boston!)
* Test Driven Development for Embedded C by James Grenning
* Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
Dennis has also worked on DEKA's iBOT and at Avinger's OCT system.
Dennis had a list of suggested articles and blogs on safety critical software development:
* 30 Pitfalls for Real Time Systems (part 1 and part 2)
* Rules for defensive C programming
* Joel Spolsky's blog (see top 10)
* Why are you still using C
* The Power of Ten -- 10 Rules…
Mar 18, 2015
93: Delicious Gumbo
The Linker post for this episode is RTOSs and Brownies.
Joel Sherrill (@JoelSherrill) spoke with us about real time operating systems, free and open source software, interns, and space.
RTEMS home page and wiki
Google Summer of Code (the FAQ is the best part!) and ESA Summer of code (awesome tagline: In space no one can hear you code).
The LEON is the ESA Sparc core with open source VHDL and extensive use by ESA.
Some projects RTEMS is used on include the Magnetosphere Multiscale Mission, theExPRESS Logistics Carrier, Mars Curiosity, and the Dawn spacecraft that is visiting the Ceres asteroid.
Mar 11, 2015
92: Everybody Behave, Please
The Linker post for this episode: Make Anything
James @Laen Neal from OSHPark spoke with us about starting a business, helping open source hardware, and throwing wild parties.
OSHPark got its start from DorkbotPDX.
If you are in Portland, Oregon, check out their meetup (started out on Mondays, now first Tuesday of the month, look at the CymaSpace meetup calendar for the Maker Meetup).
Open Source Hardware Association (OSHA)
PCB Design School blog
Bay Area Maker Faire 2015 is May 16-17, Bring a Hack dinner is usually Sunday.
This time we really did talk about the Maker Pro book.
Mar 4, 2015
91: Save Us From Astronauts
The Linker post for this episode: Make Anything
James @Laen Neal from OSHPark spoke with us about starting a business, helping open source hardware, and throwing wild parties.
OSHPark got its start from DorkbotPDX.
If you are in Portland, Oregon, check out their meetup (started out on Mondays, now first Tuesday of the month, look at the CymaSpace meetup calendar for the Maker Meetup).
Open Source Hardware Association (OSHA)
PCB Design School blog
Bay Area Maker Faire 2015 is May 16-17, Bring a Hack dinner is usually Sunday.
This time we really did talk about the Maker Pro book.
Feb 25, 2015
90: Stick It in a Pumpkin
The Linker post for this Episode: Solving a Different Problem
ThingM's Tod Kurt (@todbot) joined us to talk about the most important part of every embedded system: blinking lights.
ThingM has been making I2C lights (BlinkM, MinM and MaxM) since 2006.
The newer, more productized USB light is the Blink(1) (there is a coupon near the end of the show). Blink(1) had two successful kickstarters (second one).
The BlinkMs have an ATTiny85 (which is also on the Adafruit Trinket). The Blink(1)s have a PIC processor that is small, cheap, and supports USB quite well (PIC16F1455-I/ML and dev kit).
Other smart LEDs include WS28xx (aka NeoPixel) and APA102 (aka DotStar)
Seeed Studio was discussed as a way to get boards built, assembled, even housed. Elecia mentioned Tindie's new CM review site.
Tod is cofounder of Crash Space (@CrashSpaceLA), a Los Angeles based hackspace. They (including Tod) were on the short-lived Mythbusters-hosted Rube Goldberg devices show called Unchained Reaction.
To…
Feb 18, 2015
89: I Have New Batteries
Chris Savage (@SavageCircuits) talks about building a community and about stopping projects when life intrudes.
His site is Savage Circuits. He has a YouTube channel. He has Savage Circuit TV which are the longer, more in depth videos and Short Circuit for the shorter ones. Also see his forums.
Chris works for Parallax and had some kit suggestions: BOE-BOT (board of education bot), its successor the ActivityBot, and the ELEV-8 Quadcopter Kit. Chris is also a writer for Nuts and Volts.
At the top of the show, we mentioned Chris' wife. Here is Ken Gracey's request for help. Or you can skip that and use the PayPal link on the Savage Circuits thank you page. (No PayPal account required.)
Feb 11, 2015
88: Science Is a Lot Like Quilting
Same day PCBs?!? Danielle Applestone (@dapplestone) chatted with Chris and Elecia about desktop CNC milling using @OtherMachine's OtherMill.
OtherMill links:
* features
* tools and materials (neat!)
* store (kits!)
* instructables (chocolate spaceships!)
* kickstarter page
* miniature mocha pot
* brass, err.. aluminum turbine (also: what Elecia heard)
* stories of people using OtherMill
Synthetos TinyG controller (also see the Make write up about TinyG)
BANT (budget, authority, need, timing): more info
Feb 4, 2015
87: Make My Own Steel Foundry
Chip Gracey spoke with us about founding @ParallaxInc, chip design, and the Propeller with its many cores.
Parallax
Some notes on open sourcing the Propeller
Propeller One Verilog forum
Propeller products
Elecia has a very old Propeller Starter kit but is tempted to get the PropStick USB.
Many years ago, Chris got a Basic Stamp 2 module (like this one) to control a camera in his RC airplane:
Jan 28, 2015
86: Madeupical Word
86: MADEUPICAL WORD
Erin McKean (@emckean) is a lexicographer, programmer, and start-up founder. We spoke to her about Wordnik (the online uber dictionary), Reverb (smarter recommendations), and her many books.
Wordnik:
* Adopt-a-word
* Developer
* Erin's favorite list
Reverb
Erin has written many books, some about words, one about dresses (The Hundred Dresses), and one fiction novel about The Secret Lives of Dresses. She has also given two TED talks.
Watson on Jeopardy
Brian Garner talks about skunked words in his book Modern American Usage
Five Intriguing Things via Tiny Letter [Feb 2, 2015: This link is broken today but it is the right link, google "Five Intriguing Things" to see if they've fixed it.]
Elecia's Wordy project if fully documented over on Hackaday
Reaction Housing is hiring!
Jan 21, 2015
85: Stalked by Hoopers and Engineers
Scott Miller built a hula hoop with Bluetooth, an inertial measurement unit, a 32-bit processor, an 8-bit processor, and a slew of individually addressable LEDs. It makes wild patterns when you move.
Scott's "normal" company, with all of its ham radio equipment, is Argent Data Systems. The hula hoops are Hyperion Hoops.
You can buy a hoop. They are also on Facebook or you can watch the mesmerizing lightshow on YouTube (also here and here).
Yes, the hula hoop does speak DMX512, doesn't everybody?
Reaction Housing is hiring!
Jan 14, 2015
84: You Can't Make Money Taking Tests
The founders of Bluestamp Engineering spoke with us about running a hands-on summer engineering program for high school students (while keeping their day jobs).
Bluestamp website, Twitter (@BlueStampEng), YouTube channel full of student projects and Facebook page.
Dave Young (@daveyoungEE) is also the principal engineer at Young Circuit Design.
Robin Mansukhani is also CEO of Alzeca. Robin also gave a TED talk about learning by doing.
Jan 7, 2015
83: The First Time I Was Electrocuted
Raman Pi creator Mark Johnson (@flatCat_) spoke with us about spectrometers, 3D printing, and competing in the Hackaday Prize.
Raman Pi project on Hackaday.io
Hackaday prize semi-finalist video
Mike Szczys' Fl@c@ bio on Hackaday.com
Open Source Fusor Research Consortium
Wikipedia: spectrometer, Raman spectroscopy, fusors, and optical coherence tomography
Weird Stuff is a Bay area electronics surplus store
Raman Pi also has its own website
Dec 31, 2014
82: I Was a Chewbacca Person
Jen, Chris, and Elecia talk about the movies that influenced them to go into engineering.
Real Genius (imdb, Amazon)
Star Wars (imdb, Amazon)
Choose Your Own Adventure books (Amazon, wiki)
Wargames (imdb, Amazon)
Ghostbusters (imdb, Amazon)
Star Trek: The Next Generation (imdb, Amazon)
321 Contact, show and magazine (imdb (tv))
The Muppets Show (imdb, Amazon)
Sneakers (imdb, Amazon)
Phineas and Ferb (imdb, Amazon)
Sisterhood of Spies (Amazon)
Crytonomicon (Amazon)
Dec 17, 2014
81: Two of Those People Can't Be Ducks
Chris and Elecia babble up a show about gifts, conferences, and makers.
Embedded Systems Conference is put on by UBM. The conference is in Boston May 6-7, 2015, Santa Clara July 20-22, and Minneapolis November 4-5. The Santa Clara proposal deadline is January 9th.
O'Reilly's Solid Conference is June 22-25 in San Francisco. Proposals are due January 12th.
Fitbit Surge (Amazon)
Kerbal Space Program and some controllers and telemetry boards from other people
CrossyRoad is on iOS and Android (This is bad, do not start. Also unihorse is the best!)
Elecia's Wordy project on Hackaday
Magnetoception in humans is controversial (wiki) but the magnetometer/motor anklet is neat.
Dec 10, 2014
80: Most of Us Are Human Beings
Bill Winterberg (@BillWinterberg) chatted with Elecia about leaving embedded engineering to become a financial planner then to being a technology adviser to other financial planners.
Bill's company is FPPad. You can subscribe to his newsletter and watch Bits and Bytes, his video blog (or read it).
Bill and Elecia met at LeapFrog. Bill was instrumental in making the original LeapPad Learning System.
When Elecia mentioned Domini Social Investments, Bill mentioned Vanguard Total Stock Market.
Get a Financial Life: Personal Finance In Your Twenties and Thirties
Financial adviser networks:
* XY Planning Network (by interest)
* Garrett Planning Network (hourly fees only)
* NAPFA (fee only advisers)
* CFP® (by zip code)
Robo-advisor (automated investment management)
Bill says: "It shouldn't be this hard for smart engineers."
Dec 4, 2014
79: Not as Efficient as the Borg
Vicky Tuite (@vixter55) came on the show to chat with Chris and Elecia about EVAOS, a company that upgrades Ford trucks into plug-in hybrids.
Feminist Hacker Barbie
She’s Geeky
Bay piggies (BayPIGgies)
Nov 25, 2014
78: Happy Cows
Chris Svec (@christophersvec) has an idea about adding empathy to software development. It is a good idea.
His blog is Said Svec. He works for iRobot and they are hiring. (Chris' email is given toward the end of the show but if you hit the contact link here, we'll pass along info to him.)
Obligatory cat video
Embedded has an episode devoted to impostor syndrome.
O'Reilly's Head First book series is pretty awesome.
Elecia is still talking about Thinking, Fast and Slow as a great way to understand brains. Chris Svec also recommends Make It Stick.
The Richard Hamming quote came from his address to the Naval Postgraduate School. The whole lecture is available on YouTube.
Nov 19, 2014
77: Goldfish, Fetch My Slippers!
Sophi Kravitz (@SophiKravitz, G+) joined us to talk about working on neat things: Wobble World, Oculus Rift, Unity, goldfish training, and BlueStamp Engineering.
Sophi's company is Mix Engineering
Leap Motion vs. Microsoft Kinect
Goldfish driving (vid)
Quit Your Day Job on Element14, previously on Super Green Dot
Advertising in SkyMall
Thermoelectric Firestarter
Nov 12, 2014
76: Entropy Is for Wimps
Ron Sparks (@txNgineer, AG5RS) spoke with us about the convergence of makers and ham radio enthusiasts.
The alternative internet: AMPRNet (wiki) aka 44 net
South Texas Balloon Launch Team
Pecan Pico
AmSAT
SatNOGS (their site, their hackaday entry, and the video Elecia liked)
Weak Signal Propagation Reporter Network ("whisper"). Also on wiki.
Nov 5, 2014
75: End Up in a Puppy Fight
Glenn Scott and Nacho Solis spoke with Elecia about content-centric networking, being research scientists, and working at PARC.
[Note: Elecia was the recording engineer and her inexperience showed by not hitting that other little button on the software. Nacho's mic ended up bad but Chris mostly fixed it... the sound gets better after the first five minutes.]
Twitter: Nacho (@isolis), CCN (@projectccnx), and PARC (@PARCInc)
CCNX website (includes contact link)
CCN enabled Riot OS
Oct 29, 2014
74: All of Us Came in Sixth
John Schuch (@JohnS_AZ) talked with us about being a semifinalist in the Hackaday Prize, his project, and entering other contests.
John's webpage
John's Hackaday Page
Winning Entry on Mouser 500 Challenge
Honorable Mention on Circuit Cellar's ChipKit2012
Many contests are announced on Circuit Cellar and searching the EEVBlog forums.
IRC channel mentioned is TYMKRS
Oct 22, 2014
73: That's a Waste of Bits
Christopher and Elecia look through listener email, check in on what past guests are up to, and consider the best and worst of science in recent fiction.
Hackaday Prize Finalists (and the 50 Semiinalists)
Saleae Logic Pro 16 (related: Drive the Boat with a Wii Mote)
Darma Kickstarter (related: Resonant Frequency of My Butt)
Peep sign up to be notified of their Kickstarter (related: Vision for Simple Minds)
EMSL Halloween round up and open house on Nov 13 (related: Mwahahaha Session)
Silicon Chef Hackathon results (related: Dancing with Hundreds of Women)
Pan-CJK fonts (related: The Tofu Problem)
The Martian (Amazon) (There is a tiny spoiler, one Elecia doesn't think merits the warning but Christopher says to skip 55:00 to 01:02:55 if you want to read the book cold.)
Don's I Snooze Remote
Oct 15, 2014
72: This Is My NASA Phone
Emile Petrone (@emilepetrone) talked with Chris and Elecia about Tindie: buying, selling, changing the rate of hardware innovation, having a burgeoning start up, connecting government agencies to craft electronics, etc.
We talked about many amazing projects on Tindie but there were so many, it is hard to call them out. Arduboy and AirPi Raspberry Pi weather station are two that stood out.
Oct 8, 2014
71: Dirty Your Mindscape
Intellectual property attorney Judith Szepesi (@Judith_IP) discusses what Elecia (and startups) need to know about patenting.
Judith is a founding partner at HIPLegal, LLP. They will soon have a guide to addressing patent trolls (link to be added when available).
Ask Patents - a Stack Exchange site to discuss patents (and patent trolls)
Judith and Elecia both recommend the Patent It Yourself book from NOLO Press (always get the latest of this). Even if you seek legal counsel, you'll have a better idea of what should happen through the process. [Note: we got to talking after the show and Judith reminded me that if you do research for other people's patents, you should track that because you have an obligation to tell the patent office about whatever you are aware of that is relevant. -El]
Oct 3, 2014
70: Make Us All into Sherlock Holmes
Rob Faludi (@Faludi), author of Building Wireless Sensor Networks and chief innovator at Digi International, spoke with us about Zigbee, writing, and experimenting.
Rob's blog
Books we talked about:
* Building Wireless Sensor Networks (of course!)
* Creativity, Inc.
* Make: Wearable Electronics
Sep 25, 2014
69: Look at This Entire Aisle of Standoffs
Mike Szczys (@Szczys) discusses @Hackaday, the SPACE! prize, being a professional musician, and visiting Silicon Valley.
Hackaday.com blog including Mike's post about Why Open Design is the way forward
Hackaday.io project site
Hackaday Prize
* All entries
* 50 semifinalists
* Science fiction contest winners (previous contest)
* Mike was on the judging panel to winnow down from 800 entries to 50. Some projects that he thought were particularly awesome that didn't make the semifinalist cut.
* Intelligent Ski Course
* Taylor Multifuel Null-rotor Turbine
* V-Sink -- video in anything out (not discussed)
* Daisy Kite Airborne Wind Turbine (not discussed)
Supply Frame FindChips and (upcoming) Parts.io
In response to a listener question, Elecia wrote a blog post about things to do in Silicon Valley. When Mike visited for the first time, he caught many highlights: he went toHSC/Halted, enjoying how organized it is, woke up early for the De Anza electronics flea market, a…
Sep 17, 2014
68: Dancing With Hundreds Of Women
Angie Chang (@thisgirlangie) joined us to talk about the coding bootcamp Hackbright Academy, their upcoming hardware hackathon, Girl Geek Dinners, and the extreme awkwardness of networking.
Sign up to be a hackathon mentor (not gender limited) or to be on the waitlist to attend (women only). Get your team together on Hackathon IO.
Sign up to be a Hackbright Academy mentor.
Oh look! Elecia signed up to speak on Sunday!
Grace Hopper Conference
The article on Peter Thiel and women founders by Kate Losse that Chris referenced toward the end of the show.
Sep 11, 2014
67: Software for Things That Can Kill People
In front of a live audience, Chris and Elecia talk about their experiences with FAA and FDA.
This show was recorded live in front of the Silicon Valley Automotive Open Source meetup group at Hacker Dojo.
The Wikipedia article on DO-178B is a good place to get an overview of the FAA process (even for other levels of concern).
For FDA, their guidance is the best place to start. Also see their 510k information. Finally, note that all class III (3, very high risk) require the more difficult Premarket Approval (PMA) process.
Everything we know about car safety certification, we learned by reading Wikipedia's ISO-26262, including Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ASIL).
Jack Ganssle's Embedded.fm episode was Being a Grownup Engineer.
Sep 3, 2014
66: As Simple as Possible
Jack Gassett (@gadgetfactory) is the creator of the open source FPGA Papiliodevelopment board. He joins Chris and Elecia to answer the age-old question of how to get started with FPGAs.
Jack's company is Gadget Factory.
Chris got the Papilio Pro and Arcade MegaWing.
Recommended reading:
* Mike Field's book Introducing the Spartan 3E FPGA and VHDL (FREE! With code!)
* Mealy and Tappero's Free Range VHDL (FREE!)
* Sundar Rajan's Essential VHDL : RTL Synthesis Done Right
* Roger Tokheim Digital Electronics: Principles and Applications
* Thomas Floyds Digital Logic Fundamentals (also see the latest edition)
Chris and Elecia will be recording live at Hacker Dojo in Mountain View, CA on Monday, September 8, 2014 at 7 P.M. RSVP!
Aug 27, 2014
65: Resonant Frequency of My Butt
Darma (@Darma_inc) is a nascent start-up focusing on optical sensors in a seat cushion to aid in posture, stress reduction, and meditation. Chris and Elecia speak with CEO Dr. Junhao Hu and Sharif Kassatly about building a company, going through the Haxlr8r's accelerator program, and choosing a crowd funding platform.
Keep up with Darma on their webpage and on their Facebook page.
One of their advisors is NASA's Dr. Joan Vernikos, author of Sitting Kills, Moving Heals.
Aug 21, 2014
64: Making Making Embedded Whoops
WHOOPS! We didn't record Elecia's mic this week and are taking a track direct from Chris' computer mic. Sound quality is not up to our normal standards. Sorry!
Chris (@stoneymonster) hosted the show, asking Elecia (@logicalelegance) what it was like to write her Making Embedded Systems book. (Thanks to Chris Svec for the request!)
Put in your idea to O'Reilly
Write a novel this November with NaNoWriMo
Come hear Chris and Elecia talk about writing software that can kill you at Hacker Dojo in Mountain View on Monday September 8, 2014, 7pm. Sign up!
Also, bonus quotes:
"Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing." - Benjamin Franklin
"Almost anyone can be an author; the business is to collect money and fame from this state of being." - A. A. Milne
Aug 13, 2014
63: Dingo-Rabbit Deathmatch
Steve Dalton (@spidie) told us about starting a hackerspace, visiting Silicon Valley with a homebrew incubator group, and tech and fencing Australia.
Gold Coast Tech Space started off building the Rep Rap 3D printer
Steve's consulting group is Refactor
Silicon Lakes incubator just opened a call for applications to the SURF accelerator.
The Arduino-like GCDuino, available on Little Bird
Rabbits are not indigenous and not appreciated in Australia. They have the rabbit proof fenceand the Easter Billby.
Aug 6, 2014
62: Costs a Penny to Go to the Bathroom
Josh Bleecher Snyder (@offbymany) joined us to talk about PayPal's Beacon, being acquired, the Go programming language, BTLE, computer vision, and working at a large company after founding small ones.
Bluetooth Low Energy: A Developer's Handbook by Robin Heydon
TI CC2540 BTLE module
Learning OpenCV: Computer Vision by Gary Bradski and Adrian Kaehler
Gatt is a Go package for building Bluetooth Low Energy peripherals (video description by Josh from GopherCon 2014)
Card.io
Machine learning's Theano
Eigen Library for matrix math
Jul 30, 2014
61: I Want Programmable Pants
Jen Costillo (@rebelbotJen) brings Fashion Professor Kyle Chan to discuss wearables from a different perspective.
California College of the Arts' Summer Series: Design of Wearables. Jen and Kyle's session isFashionably Practical on Wedneday, August 6th, 2014 8:15pm-10pm in San Francisco.
Sparkfun conductive ribbon and thermochromatic pigment (blue)
Athos athletic body monitoring
Cute Circuit's photonic couture
Smoke dress (neat!)
Necomimi: thought controlled cat ear headband
Reebok Checklight for detecting concussions and the Adafruit teardown
Hövding scarf airbag for cyclists
Jul 23, 2014
60: Fun Things You Can Make out of Beagles
Jason Kridner (@Jadon) joined us to talk about the BeagleBone Black... and other things.
Some good books for Beagle :
* Bad to the Bone: Crafting Electronics Systems with Beaglebone and BeagleBone Black(co-authored by Jason)
* Getting Started with BeagleBone: Linux-Powered Electronic Projects With Python and JavaScript
* Programming the BeagleBone Black: Getting Started with JavaScript and BoneScript
* More comprehensive list of BeagleBone resources
BotSpeak - A programming language for internet endpoints
To contact Jason about ordering a bunch of units for your OEM use, see his contact info on BeagleBoard.org's About page.
Jul 17, 2014
Bonus: Heartbreak Afterparty
Chris and Elecia went on vacation so this week we have music for you: the Ballistic Cats will be releasing a new album soon! If you like it, please check out the Ballistc Cats website. This album will be officially released on August 15, 2014.
Jul 10, 2014
59: Vision for Simple Minds
Craig Sullender of ChipSight joined Elecia and Christopher to talk about machine, computer, and embedded vision.
Craig's
*
$20 Vision System – IoTcam
*
Lighting control demos
*
Slides on embedded CV technology
Peep, a camera for your door'd peephole (soon to be on Kickstarter)
Lattice Mach X02
O'Reilly's Practical Computer Vision with SimpleCV
Jul 2, 2014
58: Use These Powers For Good
Joe Grand (@JoeGrand) spoke with us about his life as Kingpin, hardware hacking, hosting a TV show, and being a Hackaday judge.
Joe's company is the Grand Idea Studio. His TV show Prototype This was on the Discovery Channel. He created an Atari game: SCSIcide. Joe will be giving his hardware hacking training at Black Hat USA in August (as well as some of the other security conferences in also Las Vegas at that time).
Joe and Elecia are on the Hackaday Prize judging panel. There are some amazing projects if you want to check out your competition (or vote for the ones you like!).
Jun 25, 2014
57: Engineering on the Run
Ken Milnes talked to Elecia and Chris about his career developing augmented reality for sports broadcasting.
SportVision
MLB Stats
Jun 18, 2014
56: Rodents of Unusual Size
Matt Haines (@beardedinventor) and Tom Byrne (@tlbyrn) spoke to Elecia and Chris about Electric Imp (@electricimp). This discussion goes far beyond our first with Matt (Episode 6!). It is more software and implementation oriented than last week's Amp Hour.
In the vein of "what do I do after I've made an LED blink from a webpage?":
* Tom's Neopixel Weather project (instructable!)
* Mars Curiosity rover that mirrors what is happening on Mars (provide your own Martian)
* Elecia's are-you-ok widget Sparkfun tutorial, thanking Matt for his help with cleaning (ahem, re-writing) the code
* Electric Imp github repository, including the extensive webservices page
* Hackathon entry Twitch controls a HexBot via Electric Imp led to an excited discussion of Twitch Plays Pokemon
* Matt's Hackaday Prize (SPACE!) entry that uses an Imp to show when the ISS is overhead
* MakeDeck is making Electric Imp dev kits for OEM development.
* Imp page devoted to the question under Next Steps (…
Jun 12, 2014
55: Embedded Systems and Cricket
Radhika Thekkath, CEO of Agivox, joined Elecia to talk about her start up, entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley, and getting NSF SBIR grants.
Contact Radhika
SBIR home page
Jun 4, 2014
54: Oh! The Hugh Manatee
Elizabeth Brenner (@eabrenner) returned to the show to talk about the are-you-ok widget that she and Elecia have been working on. (The initial problem-statement show is episode 17.)
There is now a SparkFun tutorial so you can build one of the are-you-ok widgets yourself. As announced in the show, there is a contest to get a SparkFun gift card, it ends 6/13/14 so get your answer in by then (maximum of two entries per person, please).
Elecia already took the name Sal Right out of the running (reference). In the photo below, are Maxwell, Hugh (Cation pattern!), Haley, and Grimes (from