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 are hiring . They work with Playground . Jeri was last on Embedded.fm episode 23: Go For Everything I Want ....
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 twe...
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 at MightyOhm.com/geiger . The really, really useful Soldering Is Easy comic book is MightyOhm.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 ...
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 wi...
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) on Powering 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: Z...
Paul Sidenblad spoke to us about his engineering career, starting off with GE's work on the Gambit 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....
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 is Chapter 8 of Publication 535 . Elecia mentioned her Snow White's Guide to Your First Stock Options ....
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 Cr...
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....
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 exhib...
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 [email protected] . 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 . ...
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 on NPR.com or your favorite podcast app. Kelly's Diary of a Bad Year: A War Correspondent's Dilemma is an amazing li...
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 ne...
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.umi...
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 ...
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 ...
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 St...
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-Discovery board. 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...
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 ....
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 C alling constructo...
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 als...
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 sour...
Eric Hankinson ( @Kumichou ) tells us about the new embedded software components of Contextual 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...
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 pro...
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 ne...
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 I...
Alvaro Prieto ( @alvaro prieto ) 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 ...
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....
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 . ( @m...
🐔=🦃+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.) from Scientific American (with real science) or in easy-to-follow pictur...
