We talked with John Taylor about his book, how to handle data, and the open/closed principle of software development. John’s book is Patterns in the Machine . It was mentioned on Embedded Artistry and is part of their Design for Change course. John also has a blog ( PatternsInTheMachine.net ) and a github repo that is a companion to his book, showing the PIM framework. Transcript...
Daniel Situnayake joined us to talk about AI, embedded systems, his new book on the previously mentioned topics, and writing technical books. Daniel’s book is AI at the Edge: Solving Real-World Problems with Embedded Machine Learning from O’Reilly Media. He is also the Head of Machine Learning at Edge Impulse , which makes machine learning on embedded devices simpler. They have a Responsible AI License which aims to keep our robot overlords from being too evil. We mentioned AI Dungeon as an amus...
Chris Svec joined us to talk about kids programming and how well the Joel Test has held up. Svec’s son (“The Kid”) developed an interest in programming by playing games. Most of his programming desires are around building games of his own. Any time we talk about kids and programming, Scratch comes up. It really is that neat and is The Kid approved. Some resources to get you started (actually, getting started is easy, you may want a book to do more than the basics): The Everything Kids' Scratch C...
Chris and Elecia take an in-studio vacation, chatting about what they’ve been doing. A few technical topics came up, entirely unintentionally. Shirts are on sale James Webb Space Telescope Pop-Up Card Spicy Honey Github Codespaces lets you try out some code bases Some quirks of C How do breakpoints even work? (via Memfault’s Interrupt) Transcript...
Thea Flowers creates open source and open hardware craft synthesizers that use Circuit Python for customization. She also writes about the internals of the SAMD21. Thea’s synthesizer modules are found at Winterbloom , including Castor & Pollux and the Big Honking Button . It is all open source hardware so you can find code and schematics on Thea’s github site: github.com/theacodes Thea’s site is thea.codes . You can find her blog there with deeply technical and detailed posts such as The most th...
Sarah Withee spoke with us about using an artificial pancreas, learning many programming languages, and FIRST robotics. More about the Open Artificial Pancreas System can be found at OpenAPS.org or in their documentation . Some other pieces we talked about include: LoopKit: an automated insulin delivery app template for iOS github (some additional docs ) AndroidAPS github (additional docs ) Reilly Link is the communication method for some insulin pumps Orange Link is a Reilly Link compatible dev...
Michael Gielda spoke with us about Renode, an open source embedded systems simulator. It also simulates large distributed systems and network communications. Check out Renode.io and the boards supported by Renode and Zephyr on Renodepedia . Elecia played with the Nucleo F401 tutorial on colab . Michael is the co-founder of Antmicro . The ESP32-C3 is a commercial RISC-V core with WiFi and BLE. We also mentioned Wokwi on the show. (And we had its creator Uri Shaked as a guest on episode 396: Untan...
Martha Wells is a science fiction and fantasy author. She spoke with us about her books (including Murderbot Diaries!), writing, and creating fantastical worlds. Marth ( @marthawells1 ) has won Nebula, Hugo, and Locus Awards for her work. We mostly talked about the Murderbot Diaries and the Books of the Raksura . Oh, and the Star Wars tie-in about Leia, Razor's Edge . And The Witch King is coming out next year, a brand new world. Heck, just look at her full catalog . Martha also has a blog and a...
Jasper van Woudenberg spoke with us about hacking hardware, writing a technical book, and ethics. The Hardware Hacking Handbook was written by Jasper and Colin O’Flynn ( ChipWhisperer and episode 286: Twenty Cans of Gas ). The site related to the book is hardwarehacking.io , you don’t need the book to play with some of the examples. Jasper ( @jzvw ) is also the CTO of Riscure North America , a company that specializes in hardware security. They are hiring . Transcript...
Chris and Elecia bounce from topic to topic, discussing life and work and occasionally answering listener emails. Python can format code into equations in Latex with Latexify ( as noted in this tweet ) Interesting sensor: Sensing deep-tissue physiology via wearable ultrasonic phased arrays Turing Complete - a listener-recommended logic gate puzzle game for Steam. In the past, we’ve also talked about Zachtronics’ TIS-100 which is similar and Shenzhen IO which is at the circuit level. Oh, and ther...
We were joined in the studio by the Evil Mad Scientists Lenore Edman and Windell 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...
We spoke with Duncan Haldane about creating hardware schematics by writing software code, three dimensional circuits, and bio-inspired jumping robots. Duncan is the CEO of JitX ( jitx.com ). They recently received Series A funding and are currently hiring engineers. Please mention that you heard about JitX here on Embedded. While earning a PhD at UC Berkeley, Duncan ( @DuncanHaldane ) also worked on Salto ( video ) and OpenRoach ( github ). Transcript...
Jonathan Beri spoke with us about the different IoT development tools and how to categorize them. Jonathan ( @beriberikix ) is the CEO of Golioth ( @golioth_iot ). He wrote a blog post called An Introduction to The Five Clouds of IoT , breaking the clouds into individual clouds: device, connectivity, data, application, and development. Jonathan was previously on Embedded 222: Virtual Bunnie when he worked for Particle.io. A partial list of the IoT tools we mentioned: ThingsBoard Freeboard Grafan...
Elizabeth Wharton spoke to us about laws, computers, cybersecurity, and funding education in rural communities. She is a strong proponent of privacy by design and de-identification by default. Liz ( @LawyerLiz ) is the VP of Operations at Scythe.io ( @scythe_io ), a company that works in cybersecurity. She won the Cybersecurity or Privacy Woman Law Professional of the Year for 2022 at DefCon. Liz is on the advisory board of the Rural Tech Fund ( @ruraltechfund ) which strives to reduce the digit...
Elecia and Chris are back from vacation and catching up! Today’s topics include: last week’s burnout episode and what we learned, what is a PSoC and why would you want one, how to get up to speed as a junior engineer, and a few more side quests. The burnout episode with Keith Hildesheim was last week, we encourage you to check it out, we learned some things about ourselves and maybe you will too. Chris mentioned astrophotography and here’s the link to the reddit post that inspires him to keep go...
Keith Hildesheim joined us in an excellent conversation about avoiding burnout at work (and dealing with the aftereffects). Keith mentioned some useful books and articles: Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle Mindset: The New Psychology of Success SCARF Model Burnout Is About Your Workplace, Not Your People 5 Ways to Boost Your Resilience at Work How to Make Stress Your Friend Growth Mindset vs. Fixed Mindfulness Exercises 3 Ways to Recharge When You're Burned Out . Transcript Keith...
Mike Harrison 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 . He's on twitter as @mikelectricstuf. Here's a link to what prompted the show: PIC fight on Twitter . 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 ....
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.
Gustavo Pezzi spoke with us about using fun and simple systems to explain low-level concepts and how they work in higher-level engineering tasks. For example, teaching microprocessor concepts using Atari 2600 assembly and physics by creating a simple game engine. Gustavo’s site is Pikuma.com . He has a free taster course on bit-shifting . We also talked about Atari 2600 Programming with 6502 Assembly and Physics Game Engine Programming . Stella, a multi-platform Atari 2600 emulator For examples ...
Phillip Johnston joined us to talk about how engineering approaches can change over time. This conversation started with Phillip’s Embedded Artistry blog post How Our Approach to Abstract Interfaces Has Changed Over the Years . His new course is Designing Embedded Software for Change . Embedded Artistry has a Design Pattern Catalogue (though Elecia was looking at Software design patterns on Wikipedia during the podcast). https://github.com/embvm Phillip is working with Memfault on an ongoing emb...
Chris and Elecia chat about origami, learning, whether to future proof tools or buy the cheaper option, simulators, and classes. Elecia is gearing up to teach another Making Embedded Systems course. Sign up if you want to be in the Yellow Seahorses cohort ! Sign up early and often. Sign up other people. Ask other people to sign themselves up and even more other people. Well, you get the idea. Check out Wokwi! While it looks like it is for Arduino from the front page, there is a lot of work going...
Chris Hobbs talks with Elecia about safety critical systems. Safety-critical systems keep humans alive. Writing software for these embedded systems carries a heavy responsibility. Engineers need to understand how to make code fail safely and how to reduce risks through good design and careful development. The book discussed was Embedded Software Development for Safety-Critical Systems by Chris Hobbs. This discussion was originally for Classpert (where Elecia is teaching her Making Embedded Syste...
Dan White, CEO of Filament Games, spoke to us about educational games, how to make play part of learning, and simulating robots. We also discussed what makes a good (or bad) learning experience, the limits of games as educational tools, and the elements of fun. Roblox is a game platform and game creation system. Filament Games is developing a robot simulator called Roboco . Filament has many games out in the wild, check out their portfolio . If this sounds like fun, check out their careers page ...
Mohit Bhoite 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 tryi...
Eric Schlaepfer and Windell Oskay are the authors of Open Circuits: The Inner Beauty of Electronic Components. We discussed the inner beauty of a number of electronic components as well as cameras, photography, writing, preparing samples, and terrible title puns. You can pre-order the physical book and get a digital early release copy at NoStarch.com/Open-Circuits Windell is co-founder of Evil Mad Scientist Laboratory ( @EMSL ). He and Eric have collaborated before on several projects: The Three...
Chris and Elecia question embedded systems then answer listener questions about embedded systems. They mostly agree except about one thing which, after some discussion, they agree upon. Mostly. Video of Cissy Strut cover where Chris plays all of the instruments Video where Elecia shows off some programmatic origami and simulation (not discussed but it seemed reasonable retaliation for talking about Chris’ video) Dynamic Linker for Cortex-M ( github repo ) Transcript...
Alexandra Covor spoke with us about engineering, making, drawing, school, and what it means to be an artist. Alex’s projects are on GitHub and Hackster.io . Her electronics comics can be found as PikaComics on Instagram . The 2022 Open Hardware Summit named Alex as part of the Ada Lovelace Fellowship . Her favorite talk from the summit was Anuradha Reddy talking about Knotty (Naughty) Hardware . Alex works for Zalmotek , a design services firm in Bucharest. We talked about Waylay.io , including ...
John Catsoulis is the founder of Udamonic and creator of the Forth-based Scamp development board. He spoke with us about Forth, electrical engineering, and writing a technical book. Find out more about Udamonic’s Scamp at udamonic.com . There are some hardware projects under the Create menu. The Forth programming language is famous for its small size, portability, and post-fix (RPN) nature. John wrote O’Reilly’s Designing Embedded Hardware . While some parts are out of date, the general theory i...
Lead Solution Architect at Cymotive, Benny Meisels spoke with us about implementing embedded software security in cars. The discussion touches ECUs, IoT vehicles, threat and risk analysis, and how reverse engineering plays a role in security testing. Benny works at Cymotive ( https://www.cymotive.com/ ). You can find him on LinkedIn benny-meisels or on Twitter @benny_meisels . Resources for automotive security: Automotive Security Research Group (ASRG) Upstream Security Hacking a VW Golf Power S...
Laura Abbott of Oxide Computing spoke with us about a silicon bug in the ROM of the NXP LPC55, affecting the TrustZone. More information about the two issues are in the Oxide blog: Another vulnerability in the LPC55S69 ROM Exploiting Undocumented Hardware Blocks in the LPC55S69 More about LPC55S6x and their LPC55Sxx Secure Boot Ghidra is a software reverse engineering framework… and it is one of the NSA’s github repositories . Laura will also be speaking about this at Hardwear.io in early June 2...
