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....
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 m...
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 learn...
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...
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 unders...
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 n...
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...
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...
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 creati...
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....
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...
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 ki...
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: M...
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 ....
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 ava...
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 ...
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 MCU...
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 Cube...
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 #54 and there is a SparkFun Tutorial ). Are you entering? The first phase (until May) is commun...
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 series by Charl...
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...
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....
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-ex...
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 Actuato...
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....
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 ...
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 . Recommende...
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 ...
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...
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...
