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 lead...
Jan 11, 2017•1 hr 9 min
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 Svec relevant. Also: Adam Savage ...
Jan 04, 2017•1 hr 14 min
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 , us...
Dec 30, 2016•1 hr 43 min
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...
Dec 20, 2016•1 hr 5 min
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 ...
Dec 15, 2016•1 hr 22 min
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 Francisc...
Dec 07, 2016•1 hr 9 min
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 30, 2016•58 min
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 22, 2016•59 min
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 pos...
Nov 16, 2016•58 min
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...
Nov 09, 2016•1 hr 16 min
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...
Nov 02, 2016•1 hr 9 min
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 26, 2016•1 hr 16 min
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 ...
Oct 19, 2016•1 hr 14 min
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 too...
Oct 12, 2016•1 hr 15 min
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 ...
Oct 04, 2016•1 hr 5 min
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 Em...
Sep 28, 2016•1 hr 6 min
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...
Sep 21, 2016•1 hr 12 min
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 14, 2016•1 hr
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 Program...
Sep 07, 2016•1 hr 1 min
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, s...
Aug 31, 2016•1 hr 18 min
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 ...
Aug 16, 2016•1 hr 8 min
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 A...
Aug 09, 2016•1 hr 9 min
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 ba...
Aug 05, 2016•1 hr 1 min
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...
Aug 03, 2016•1 hr 11 min
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-producti...
Jul 26, 2016•1 hr 22 min
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 ...
Jul 19, 2016•1 hr 11 min
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 Sara...
Jul 12, 2016•1 hr 18 min
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 avail...
Jul 05, 2016•1 hr 2 min
Fabien Chouteau ( @DesChips ) of AdaCore ( @AdaCoreCompany ) spoke with us about the Make 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...
Jun 28, 2016•1 hr 6 min
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...
Jun 23, 2016•1 hr 24 min
