Embedded

Emily Lovell spoke with us about teaching how to contribute to open source, including her own experience creating the LilyTiny as a Master's student and researching the impact as a PhD student.  The LilyTiny work was done in conjunction with Leah Buechley (Embedded episode 382). See the paper The LilyTiny: A Case Study in Expanding Access to Electronic Textiles or watch the video. UCSC Open Source Program Office (note this is different from the Center for Research in Open Source Software (CROSS) that we spoke about with Carl Maltzahn (Episode 285). Emily recommended the curriculum from TeachingOpenSource.org.  Emily's other life is at EP Custom Pickups and Aberdeen Guitars. She spoke on a lutherie panel at NAMM. Transcript  Mouser's Empowering Innovation Together hub dives into all sorts of topics like renewable energy, energy-efficient systems, and sustainable design. Whether you're looking for the latest in clean tech trends or just need some inspiration, you'll find articles, videos, and podcasts all geared toward engineers who want to make a difference. Head over to Mouser.com/empowering-innovation and check out their clean tech content.

Chris and Elecia talk about Murderbot,  LLMs (AI), bikes, control algorithms, and fancy math.  The website with the ecology jobs is wildlabs.net from 501: inside the Armpit of Giraffe with Meredith Palmer and Akiba..  The algorithm Elecia mentioned was from Patent US7370713B1. The Control Bootcamp YouTube series is a great introduction to control systems beyond PIDs There is also a book from the same folks (with matlab and some python code): Data-Driven Science and Engineering: Machine Learning, Dynamical Systems, and Control. Finding bad AI interactions is too easy. Copilot PR mess that was discussed. Lawyers letting ChatGPT hallucinate precedents. Fake (hallucinated) citations in a high-profile report on children's health. Transcript Nordic Semiconductor has been the driving force for Bluetooth Low Energy MCUs and wireless SoCs since the early 2010s, and they offer solutions for low-power Wi-Fi and global Cellular IoT as well. If you plan on developing robust and battery-operated applications, check out their hardware, software, tools, and services. On academy.nordicsemi.com, you'll find Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and cellular IoT courses, and the Nordic DevZone community covers technical questions:  devzone.nordicsemi.com. Congratulations to the giveaway winners!

We spoke with ecologist Dr. Meredith Palmer and embedded engineer Akiba about lions, terror, and technology.  Akiba works for FreakLabs.org on global conservation projects. We talked about their Boombox which Meredith uses to create experiments to map the landscape of fear in predator/prey relationships. While this may look like pranking animals with jump scares, well, there is real science being done.  What would it look like to be smooched by a lioness? (Video) Bird hears lion, decides to go over there (Video) Checking the reflexes of some zebras and other critters (Video) These are lots of fun to watch and you can find the freshest ones and help out science by categorizing some at Snapshot Safari. Or skip to using the data on Lila.science (Snapshot Safari 2024 data). Check out Meredith's website for more github and Data Dryad links to data and science.  If you want to get involved, Wildlabs.net has discussions around conservation technology. There is also a Slack group by Sara Beery focusing on AI for conservation. Elecia mentioned David Quammen, an author who writes a lot about biology and ecology. And now, a guy gives birth to a botfly.  Transcript If you're interested in the intersection of neuroscience and engineering, you might want to check out what Mouser Electronics is doing with Brain-Computer Interfaces. It's all about how you can control machines with your mind, and it's one of the coolest areas of innovation right now. Mouser's Empowering Innovation Together site has great content on BCIs, from videos to in-depth articles and podcasts that break down the tech. If this piques your curiosity, head over to Mouser.com/empowering-innovation and explore what's happening with BCI and other exciting developments in the world of design and engineering.

Komathi Sundaram spoke with us about her enthusiasm for tests and test automation. We talked about the different joys of testing vs. development, setting up CI servers, and different kinds of tests including unit, hardware-in-the-loop, and simulation. It may sound dry but we had a lot of fun. Komathi's site is TheKomSea.com which hosts her blog as well as contact info. She will be speaking on automated hardware in the loop test processes at the Embedded Online Conference.  Transcript Nordic Semiconductor has been the driving force for Bluetooth Low Energy MCUs and wireless SoCs since the early 2010s, and they offer solutions for low-power Wi-Fi and global Cellular IoT as well. If you plan on developing robust and battery-operated applications, check out their hardware, software, tools, and services. On academy.nordicsemi.com, you'll find Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and cellular IoT courses, and the Nordic DevZone community covers technical questions:  devzone.nordicsemi.com. Oh, and don't forget to enter Nordic Semiconductor's giveaway contest! Just fill out the entrance form, and you're in the running. Good luck!

We spoke with Janet Hansen about the world of professional costumery (with electronics) and becoming an artist. Janet's business is Enlighted where you can find custom illuminated clothing as well as Janet's ready-made art. Janet's personal site is janethansen.com which is more focused on her artistic pursuits. Janet mentioned Seeed's MSGEQ7. We talked about Janet's light up pillow with Debra Ansell on 494: All Tech Is Wearable — Embedded. Transcript If you're interested in the intersection of neuroscience and engineering, you might want to check out what Mouser Electronics is doing with Brain-Computer Interfaces. It's all about how you can control machines with your mind, and it's one of the coolest areas of innovation right now. Mouser's Empowering Innovation Together site has great content on BCIs, from videos to in-depth articles and podcasts that break down the tech. If this piques your curiosity, head over to Mouser.com/empowering-innovation and explore what's happening with BCI and other exciting developments in the world of design and engineering.

At the end of this week's show, Elecia reads a Winnie the Pooh poem as Cookie Monster death metal. Before that, Chris and Elecia chat about mental health, journaling, personal projects, and listener questions.  Please sign up for the Nordic Giveaway!  You can also sign up for the Embedded newsletter. Maybe now with job postings? Elecia's journaling notebook is this one on JetPens (which is where she gets her nice pens and some of her stickers and washi tape).  From discussing some listener messages, we mentioned: Matt Keeter's talk on debuggability in production where you don't have access to the system that is faulting (video and slides) Letter boards (in the Adirondacks), see those in action here Wokwi simulator is a great place to get more embedded experience without buying all the kits. Christopher has said that there will not, definitely not, under any circumstances, be a whole death metal album of Winnie the Pooh poems. Elecia is practicing anyway.  Transcript Nordic Semiconductor has been the driving force for Bluetooth Low Energy MCUs and wireless SoCs since the early 2010s, and they offer solutions for low-power Wi-Fi and global Cellular IoT as well. If you plan on developing robust and battery-operated applications, check out their hardware, software, tools, and services.   On academy.nordicsemi.com, you'll find Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and cellular IoT courses, and the Nordic DevZone community covers technical questions:  devzone.nordicsemi.com.   Oh, and don't forget to enter Nordic Semiconductor's giveaway contest! Just fill out the entrance form, and you're in the running. Good luck!

OpenMV has a new Kickstarter so CEO Kwabena Agyeman chatted with us about more powerful (and smaller!) programmable cameras.  See OpenMV's site for their existing cameras. See their (already funded!) kickstarter page for the super powerful N6 and the ridiculously small AE3. Note that OpenMV still is committed to open source. See their github if you want to know more. Edge AI is the idea of putting intelligence in the devices (instead of in the cloud). There is an advocacy and education foundation called Edge AI Foundation. This organization was formerly the TinyML Foundation. Edge Impulse and Roboflow are companies that aid in creating and training AI models that can be put on devices.  ARM talks about their Ethos-U55 NPU (and how to write software for it). Transcript

Professor Shimon Schocken spoke with us about teaching computer science from NAND logic gates to arithmetic units, micro assembly, virtual machines, compilers, operating systems, and the Tetris games. We also talk about good design, good interfaces, and good tests. Shimon's book is Elements of Computing Systems and the website with the course lecture notes, slides, videos, simulators, and everything you need is nand2tetris.org.  Shimon mentioned his work with teaching math, that is www.matific.com. You can find out more about Shimon's other projects on his site shimonschocken.com (including his fascinating TED talk: The self-organizing computer course). Shimon's co-author is Noam Nisan who also wrote about understanding logic systems (look, anytime we can bring up Gödel's incompleteness theorems, we will). We talked about Tim Bell's CS Unplugged, teaching computer science concepts without a computer. It comes in Classic and Modern flavors. Transcript Memfault is a leading embedded device observability platform that empowers teams to build better IoT products, faster. Its off-the-shelf solution is specifically designed for bandwidth-constrained devices, offering device performance and product analytics, debugging, and over-the-air capabilities. Trusted by leading brands such as Bose, Lyft, Logitech, Panasonic, and Augury, Memfault improves the reliability of devices across consumer electronics and mission-critical industries such as access control, point of sale, energy, and healthcare. To learn more, visit memfault.com.

Professor Cindy Harnett spoke to us about new and different sensors and actuators, primarily designed for soft robotics and fabricated with relatively low cost materials. Cindy is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Louisville where she runs the Harnett Lab. The papers we discussed are here. You can find a longer list of Cindy's papers on Google Scholar. The video of the SESAME actuator is especially interesting. Transcript Nordic Semiconductor has been the driving force for Bluetooth Low Energy MCUs and wireless SoCs since the early 2010s, and they offer solutions for low-power Wi-Fi and global Cellular IoT as well. If you plan on developing robust and battery-operated applications, check out their hardware, software, tools, and services.   On academy.nordicsemi.com, you'll find Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and cellular IoT courses, and the Nordic DevZone community covers technical questions:  devzone.nordicsemi.com.   Oh, and don't forget to enter Nordic Semiconductor's giveaway contest! Just fill out the entrance form, and you're in the running. Good luck!

Debra Ansell joined us to talk about finding friends and exchanging neat gifts, accidentally tricking people into making unmanufacutable boards, and happy, blinking lights. Debra is usually known by the moniker GeekMomProjects (also her website is geekmomprojects.com). She has been writing for Make Magazine.  Debra won one of the SuperCon badge add-on awards so her poseable Bendy SAO will be available at SuperCon Europe.  Some other things we mentioned: Seeed Studio XIAO board Adafruit QT Py Debra's Remoticon talk about PCB structures Martin Oehler is Maketvee on YouTube and Mastodon Janet Hansen is on Mastodon and has an incredible Enlightened Designs wearables website. #makergiftexchange on your favorite social media platform And some upcoming events that promise to have lots of LEDs: Teardown 2025 | Crowd Supply (Jun ‘25) Portland Winter Light Festival (Feb ‘25) Transcript Memfault is a leading embedded device observability platform that empowers teams to build better IoT products, faster. Its off-the-shelf solution is specifically designed for bandwidth-constrained devices, offering device performance and product analytics, debugging, and over-the-air capabilities. Trusted by leading brands such as Bose, Lyft, Logitech, Panasonic, and Augury, Memfault improves the reliability of devices across consumer electronics and mission-critical industries such as access control, point of sale, energy, and healthcare. To learn more, visit memfault.com.  

Elecia and Chris talk with each other about the state of Chris' mind, what makes an embedded developer stand out, “LEGO block” based design, unit tests, and astronomy. Whew! Elecia was recently on the Changelog podcast, talking about the world of embedded systems. Chris has been working with Micropython (we talked with Damien George about Micropython on episode 456). He's using a Pyboard to start, but is looking to move on to this board from Sparkfun. Wikipedia has a nice reference on what the pulse-per-second signal is all about. Elecia talked about her experience using CFFI to drive unit tests. She also talked about some facts from Information is Beautiful. Chris' telescope is the ZWO Seestar S50. There's also a smaller Seestar S30 now which has a wider field-of-view. Title reference (Chris and Elecia both thoroughly enjoyed The Good Place, the TV show this is taken from.) Transcript Nordic Semiconductor has been the driving force for Bluetooth Low Energy MCUs and wireless SoCs since the early 2010s, and they offer solutions for low-power Wi-Fi and global Cellular IoT as well. If you plan on developing robust and battery-operated applications, check out their hardware, software, tools, and services.   On academy.nordicsemi.com, you'll find Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and cellular IoT courses, and the Nordic DevZone community covers technical questions:  devzone.nordicsemi.com.   Oh, and don't forget to enter Nordic Semiconductor's giveaway contest! Just fill out the entrance form, and you're in the running. Good luck! Here's one of the astrophotos Chris has taken: The Horsehead and Flame nebulae in Orion taken from a Seestar S50

Nathan Jones chatted with us about his proposal for a computer architecture book based on a 4-bit computer.  Nathan found the 4-bit computer in the Hackaday SuperCon 2022 badge and was amazed by some of the ideas that folks implemented (see SuperCon Badge Hacking Awards Ceremony). Nathan spoke at Hackaday SuperCon 2023 on the processor architecture, highlighting some of his ideas for a book. If you'd like to try your hand at the badge, find it on Nathan's Voja4 Tindie page.  Nathan also spoke recently at the Embedded Online Conference (Building a Simple CLI, OOP in C, and The Power of a Look-up Table) and the Teardown Conference (Making Your Own MCU Boards and Building a Simple CLI). If you have an idea you'd like to propose, check out O'Reilly's proposal for a book or class. While you may not go with them, the proposal is a good place to get all of your ideas down. We mentioned a few other computer architecture books as competitors for Nathan's proposed book: Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach by John L. Hennessy and David A. Patterson  Introduction to Computing Systems: From bits & gates to C & beyond by Yale N. Patt and Sanjay J. Patel The Elements of Computing Systems, by Noam Nisan and Shimon Schocken (MIT Press) with supporting material and simulator on nand2tetris. Nathan also did a survey of the Embedded Slack community. You can gain access by becoming a Patreon or Kofi supporter. Transcript

Chris and Elecia spoke with Kirk Pearson about running audio-electronic-art workshops, interesting sounds, and their book Make: Electronic Music from Scratch: A Beginner's Guide to Homegrown Audio Gizmos.  Find the book and a whole kit of parts on the Dogbotic Merch page. A few clicks from there you can find the Workshop List (don't forget the coupon in the show audio).  We also mentioned The Thing (a sneaky listening device), Elliot Williams' writing on CMOS synthesizers (a series called Logic-Noise) and the videos of Sebastian Tomczak (YouTube: littlescalemusic). Transcript   Memfault is a leading embedded device observability platform that empowers teams to build better IoT products, faster. Its off-the-shelf solution is specifically designed for bandwidth-constrained devices, offering device performance and product analytics, debugging, and over-the-air capabilities. Trusted by leading brands such as Bose, Lyft, Logitech, Panasonic, and Augury, Memfault improves the reliability of devices across consumer electronics and mission-critical industries such as access control, point of sale, energy, and healthcare. To learn more, visit memfault.com.

Nikolaus Correll spoke with us about robots, teaching robotics, and writing books about robots.  Nikolaus is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Colorado, see his lab website (or his Wikipedia page). We discussed Nikolaus' Introduction to Robotics with Webots Specialization Coursera course (or YouTube Playlist). These go along with his Introduction to Autonomous Robots (which can be compiled from source from github). Masters of Computer Science online via University of Colorado and Georgia Tech. While the Arcbotics Sparki is no longer in production, Nikolaus also mentioned the Amazon Racer. Transcript Nordic Semiconductor has been the driving force for Bluetooth Low Energy MCUs and wireless SoCs since the early 2010s, and they offer solutions for low-power Wi-Fi and global Cellular IoT as well. If you plan on developing robust and battery-operated applications, check out their hardware, software, tools, and services.   On academy.nordicsemi.com, you'll find Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and cellular IoT courses, and the Nordic DevZone community covers technical questions:  devzone.nordicsemi.com.   Oh, and don't forget to enter Nordic Semiconductor's giveaway contest! Just fill out the entrance form, and you're in the running. Good luck!

Chris and Elecia discuss her origami art show, ponder PRs for solo developers, attempt to explain GDB debugging, and make a to-do list for getting rid of Kanga. Elecia is having an Origami Octopus Garden art show at the Aptos Public Library for the month of November, 2024. The postcard advertisement is below. There are more pictures on her Instagram (@elecia_white). The python tessellation generator is here. Memfault's Interrupt Debugging Firmware with GDB post is a much more considered explanation of GDB and includes pointers to other resources (including using Python with GDB). Transcript Memfault is a leading embedded device observability platform that empowers teams to build better IoT products, faster. Its off-the-shelf solution is specifically designed for bandwidth-constrained devices, offering device performance and product analytics, debugging, and over-the-air capabilities. Trusted by leading brands such as Bose, Lyft, Logitech, Panasonic, and Augury, Memfault improves the reliability of devices across consumer electronics and mission-critical industries such as access control, point of sale, energy, and healthcare. To learn more, visit memfault.com.

Andrienne Braganza Tacke spoke with us about her book Looks Good To Me: Constructive Code Reviews. It is about how to make code reviews more useful, effective, and congenial.  Adrienne's book is available now as an ebook at manning.com or a paper copy later in the year (Amazon link). Check out the example Team Working Agreement from Appendix A. Adrienne's personal website is adrienne.io. Transcript

Chris and Elecia chat about simulated robots, portents in the sky, the futility of making plans, and grad school.  A problem with mics led us to delay the show with Shimon Schoken from Nand2Tetris (co-author of Elements of The Elements of Computing Systems: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles). Look for that later in the year. Elecia is playing with Webots, a robotics physics simulator. Simpler than ROS's Gazebo, it also can run in an online mode where you can run it on a browser, selecting between many different robots.  Chris talked about processing his photos of Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) using PixInsight and Siril. Then we talked about grad school (including Georgia Tech's reasonably affordable CS Master's Degree). Tony sent in this insect detector: Mothbox. If you want links like this or de facto letters to the editor, please sign up for the Embedded.fm newsletter. Transcript   Photo of Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS), taken from Seacliff Beach in Aptos, CA by Chris White

Antoine van Gelder spoke to us about making digital musical instruments, USB, and FPGAs.  Antoine works for Great Scott Gadgets, specifically on the Cynthion USB protocol analysis tool that can be used in conjunction with Python and GSG's FaceDancer to act as a new USB device.  While bonding over MurderBot Diaries was a given, Antoine also mentioned NAND2Tetris which Elecia countered with The Elements of Computing Systems: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles, the book that covers the NAND2Tetris material. Memfault is a leading embedded device observability platform that empowers teams to build better IoT products, faster. Its off-the-shelf solution is specifically designed for bandwidth-constrained devices, offering device performance and product analytics, debugging, and over-the-air capabilities. Trusted by leading brands such as Bose, Lyft, Logitech, Panasonic, and Augury, Memfault improves the reliability of devices across consumer electronics and mission-critical industries such as access control, point of sale, energy, and healthcare. To learn more, visit memfault.com.

Alan Blackwell spoke with us about the lurking dangers of large language models, the magical nature of artificial intelligence, and the future of interacting with computers.  Alan is the author of Moral Codes: Designing Alternatives to AI  which you can read in its pre-book form here: https://moralcodes.pubpub.org/ Alan's day job is as a Professor of Interdisciplinary Design in the Cambridge University department of Computer Science and Technology. See his research interests on his Cambridge University page. (Also, given as homework in the newsletter, we didn't directly discuss Jo Walton's 'A Brief Backward History of Automated Eloquence', a playful history of automated text generation, written from a perspective in the year 2070.) Transcript

Chris and Elecia talk to each other about setting aside memory in a linker file, printing using your debugger, looking around a new code base, pointers as optimization, choosing processors, skill trees and merit badges. Elecia's Creating Chaos and Hard Faults talk and slides. STM32 Application Note AN4989 microcontroller debug toolbox includes semihosting. Memfault's Interrupt blog has a good Semihosting post. Elecia and Steph's Embedded Skills Tree. A far more detailed one pointed out by a listener: A comprehensive roadmap for aspiring Embedded Systems Engineers, featuring a curated list of learning resources.  The most influential book Elecia has never read is You Can Do It!: The Merit Badge Handbook for Grown-Up Girls.  Transcript  Memfault is a leading embedded device observability platform that empowers teams to build better IoT products, faster. Its off-the-shelf solution is specifically designed for bandwidth-constrained devices, offering device performance and product analytics, debugging, and over-the-air capabilities. Trusted by leading brands such as Bose, Lyft, Logitech, Panasonic, and Augury, Memfault improves the reliability of devices across consumer electronics and mission-critical industries such as access control, point of sale, energy, and healthcare. To learn more, visit memfault.com.

Rick Altherr spoke with us about high-speed control, complicated systems, and making quantum computers. If you want to know more about building quantum computers, take a listen to Rick's MacroFab episode: The Nuts and Bolts of Quantum Computing. If you want to make your own quantum circuit simulator, it only takes 27 lines of Python: A Quantum Circuit Simulator in 27 Lines of Python. What about if you actually want to know about quantum computing? Rick suggests Quantum computing for the very curious while we look back at Embedded.fm 344: Superposition, Entanglement, and Interference with Kitty Yeung, talking about her Quantum Computing Comic book and Hackaday lecture series.  Rick works for IonQ where they do trapped-ion quantum computing (there are different physics methods for making ions dance to the tune of quantum computing). If you want to talk to Rick, maybe to get his advice about your resume or career prospects, he sets aside a few hours each week to share his wisdom: https://calendly.com/mxshift You can also find Rick on Mastodon and LinkedIn. He was also the guest on 311: Attack Other People's Refrigerators about security hacking and mentoring. Transcript

Professor Colleen Lewis joined us to talk teaching pointers with stuffies, explaining inheritance through tigers, and computer science pedagogy. Check out her YouTube channel to view her videos explaining CS concepts with physical models. These are also collected on her website: Physical Models of Java. If you are an instructor (or thinking about teaching CS), check out Colleen's CS Teaching Tips. You may also be interested in some other research: John Edwards Study on Syntax exercises in CS1 Daniel Willingham on why learning styles aren't a real thing A Beginner's Guide to Teaching with Algebra Tiles Colleen is an Assistant Professor at University Illinois, Urbana-Champaign's Siebel School of Computing and Data Science. You can find her papers on Google Scholar (including studies on teaching and learning).  Transcript Memfault is a leading embedded device observability platform that empowers teams to build better IoT products, faster. Its off-the-shelf solution is specifically designed for bandwidth-constrained devices, offering device performance and product analytics, debugging, and over-the-air capabilities. Trusted by leading brands such as Bose, Lyft, Logitech, Panasonic, and Augury, Memfault improves the reliability of devices across consumer electronics and mission-critical industries such as access control, point of sale, energy, and healthcare. To learn more, visit memfault.com.

Chris and Elecia talk about their current adventures in conference talks, play dates, and skunks.  Elecia's talks are available on YouTube: Creating Chaos and Hard Faults: An introduction to hard fault handlings, stack overflows, and debugging hard bugs Introduction to Embedded Systems (O'Reilly Expert Webinar): An introductions to… well, embedded systems These are both advertising for the 2nd edition of Elecia's book, Making Embedded Systems: Design Patterns for Great Software. You can also find it on O'Reilly's Learning System and probably read it with your 30 Day Trial (here).  Chris got a handheld game console, the Playdate (play.date), and has been writing a game for it. There is an interesting looking MicroPython port for it. We also mentioned Tiny Tapeout Demoscene which sounds pretty neat. And KiCanvas where you can see KiCAD schematics without loading KiCAD. Our newsletter has been off but will be back to normal next week. The RSS feed is probably not fun to look at but Elecia's Rebloginator shows some Python tools for parsing feeds.  Neither the dog nor the skunk seem contrite. Transcript

Jerry Twomey spoke with us about his new O'Reilly book Applied Embedded Electronics which covers embedded topics such as EMI, signal processing, control systems and non-ideal components. Jerry is also the principal engineer at Effective Electrons. His articles are linked from there and you can contact him via the site. Here is a 30-day trial for the O'Reilly Learning System. You can take a look at Jerry's Applied Embedded Electronics and Elecia's Making Embedded Systems as well as hundreds of other books about software, hardware, engineering, and origami.  Transcript

Carles Cufí spoke with us about Zephyr, Nordic, learning, open source development, and corporate goals.  Carles had some great suggestions for learning Zephyr: Memfault Interrupt Practical Zephyr blog series Nordic's Developer Academy  Zephyr's Discord server Zephyr's YouTube channel (@ZephyrProject), sorted by views  Macrobatics term is from Zephyr Devicetree Mysteries, Solved - Marti Bolivar, Nordic Semiconductor  There is also the Zephyr website for a full picture. And various Nordic tutorials (see nRF5340 Audio applications).  Carles was an author on Getting Started with Bluetooth Low Energy: Tools and Techniques for Low-Power Networking. The cover animal is a mousebird.  Transcript

Jan Rychter joined us to talk about building a company, electronic components, and software design. Jan is the founder and engineer at PartsBox.com. If you are interested in the meta-analysis of the data, check out his article on the Top Ten Hobby Parts and the Electronic Component Database,  You can find out more about Jan through his website (jan.rychter.com), LinkedIn, or Mastodon. Transcript

Kwabena Agyeman joined Chris and Elecia to talk about optimization, cameras, machine learning, and vision systems.  Kwabena is the head of OpenMV (openmv.io), an open source and open hardware system that runs machine learning algorithms on vision data. It uses MicroPython as a development environment so getting started is easy.  Their github repositories are under github.com/openmv. You can find some of the SIMD details we talked about on the show: 150% faster: openmv/src/omv/imlib/binary.c 1000% faster: openmv/src/omv/imlib/filter.c Double Pumping: openmv/src/omv/modules/py_tv.c   Kwabena has been creating a spreadsheet of different algorithms in camera frames per second (FPS) for Arm processors: Performance Benchmarks - Google Sheets. As time moves on, it will grow. Note: this is a link on the OpenMV website under About. When M55 stuff hits the market expect 4-8x speed gains. The OpenMV YouTube channel is also a good place to get more information about the system (and vision algorithms). Kwabena spoke with us about (the beginnings of) OpenMV on Embedded 212: You Are in Seaworld. Transcript Elecia is giving a free talk for O'Reilly to advertise her Making Embedded Systems, 2nd Edition book. The talk will be an introduction to embedded systems, geared towards software engineers who are suddenly holding a device and want to program it. The talk is May 23, 2024 at 9:00 AM PDT. Sign up here. A video will be available afterward for folks who sign up. 

Lee Wilkins joined Chris and Elecia to talk about The Open Source Hardware Association, the Open Hardware Summit, and zine culture. The Open Source Hardware Association (OSHWA) provides certification and support for creating open source hardware. The Open Hardware Summit is happening May 3-4, 2024. It is in Montreal, Canada. It also has many online components including a Discord and online Unconferece. All videos are available for later watching on YouTube.  Lee's personal page is leecyb.org. Their zines are available in their shop.  Transcript

Chris and Elecia talk about the Embedded Online Conference, their experience learning Zephyr, and some listener questions. Elecia will be presenting on Creating Chaos and Hard Faults at the Embedded Online Conference, Apr 29 - May 3, 2024. Some other talks that look interesting: The Power of a Look-up Table by Nathan Jones Zephyr Tools To Debug Hardware by Chris Gammell Breaking Good: Why Virtual Hardware Prefers Rough Handling by Uri Shaked Beyond Coding: Toward Software Development Expertise by Marian Petre Use the EMBEDDEDFM coupon for a discount (or if your whole team is going, check out the group discounts). Elecia's book (Making Embedded Systems, 2nd Edition) is shipping (Amazon or Bookshop.org). Zephyr is pretty amazing.  Transcript

Logic gates and origami? Professor Inna Zakharevich joined us to talk about Turing complete origami crease patterns.  We started talking about Turing completeness which led to a Conway's Game of Life-like 2D cellular automaton called Rule 110 (Wikipedia) which can be implemented with logic gates (AND, OR, NOT). These logic gates can be implemented as creases in paper (with the direction of the crease indicating 0 or 1).  The paper describing the proof is called Flat Origami is Turing Complete (arxiv and PDF). Quanta Magazine has a summary article: How to Build an Origami Computer. Inna's page at Cornell University also has the crease patterns for the logic gates (pdf). Inna is an aficionado of the origami work by Satoshi Kamiya who creates complex and lifelike patterns.  Some other origami mentioned: Origami Stegosaurus by John Montroll YouTube Folding video (Part 1 of 3) Ilan Garibi's Pineapple Tessellation (PDF instructions) Eric Gjerde Spread Hex Origami Tessellation (This also has the equilateral triangle grid needed to fold Inna's gate logic) Peter Engel Amanda Ghassaei's Origami Simulator (Mooser's is under Examples->Origami) Some other math mentioned: Veritasium's Math's Fundamental Flaw talks about Goerthe's Incompleteness Theorem Physical Logic Game: Turing Tumble - Build Marble-Powered Computers Mathematics of Paper Folding (Wikipedia) Transcript Memfault is making software the most reliable part of the IoT with its device reliability platform that enables teams to be more proactive with remote debugging, monitoring and OTA update capabilities. Try Memfault's new sandbox demo at demo.memfault.com. Embedded.fm listeners receive 25% off their first-year contract with Memfault by booking a demo here: https://go.memfault.com/demo-request-embedded

Philip Koopman joined us to talk about how modulo 255 vs 256 makes a huge difference in checksum error detection, how to get the most out of your checksum or CRC, and why understanding how they work is worth the effort. Philip has recently published Understanding Checksums and Cyclic Redundancy Checks. He's better known for Better Embedded System Software as well as his two books about safety and autonomous vehicles: The UL 4600 Guidebook: What to Include in an Autonomous Vehicle Safety Case How Safe Is Safe Enough?: Measuring and Predicting Autonomous Vehicle Safety Phil's YouTube page has a number of videos with great visuals to go along with his books. He also has three(!) blogs: Safe Autonomy  Better Embedded System SW Checksum and CRC Central (including a post on checksum speed comparison) Currently, Phil is a professor at Carnegie Mellon University (his page there). You can follow him on LinkedIn.  Elecia read (and give 2.5 stars to) Symmetry: A Journey into the Patterns of Nature by Marcus du Sautoy: “Interesting but uneven, I kept reading to find out what horrible things math profs do to their children in the name of fun. Worth it when I finally got to a small section with Claude Shannon (and Richard Hamming). It didn't help with this podcast but it was neat.” Transcript Nordic Semiconductor empowers wireless innovation, by providing hardware, software, tools and services that allow developers to create the IoT products of tomorrow. Learn more about Nordic Semiconductor at nordicsemi.com, check out the DevAcademy at academy.nordicsemi.com and interact with the Nordic Devzone community at devzone.nordicsemi.com.

Making Embedded Systems, 2nd Edition came out today! Chris and Elecia talk about the changes, the writing, but not the eldritch horror. Then we talk about pianos and origami.  The electronic version is available now on Amazon, ebooks.com, Google Play and where you get your ebooks. The paper copy will be out in about two weeks, you can preorder now. It is also available on the O'Reilly Learning System, here is a  30-day Trial. See the Embedded.fm Origami and Flex PCBs newsletter, sign up for future newsletters here.  Memfault is hosting its first launch week of the year! On Tuesday, March 12th, Memfault CEO François Baldassari will showcase how to evaluate the health and performance of your embedded devices clearly within Memfault's observability platform. Join the webinar to discover how simple it is to monitor three necessary device measures: stability, battery, and connectivity. Register today!

Where electronics meets music, there is a board called Daisy. Created by ElectroSmith, Andrew Ikenberry, the goal of the board is to teach computers to sing. Andrew joined us to talk about music, audio processing, instruments, product design, and electronic manufacturing.  See the Electrosmith website, specifically the Daisy Seed. The electro-smith github repository is extensive (with many Daisy Examples). Also see their YouTube channel. Electrosmith is offering 5% off until mid-March for folks with the coupon code mentioned in the show. We mentioned a number of synths but the CHOMPI is particularly nifty. Daisy Bell - Wikipedia (and where you might have heard that before (and if that doesn't give “teach computers to sing” a creepy vibe, I don't know what will)). Transcript Nordic Semiconductor empowers wireless innovation, by providing hardware, software, tools and services that allow developers to create the IoT products of tomorrow. Learn more about Nordic Semiconductor at nordicsemi.com, check out the DevAcademy at academy.nordicsemi.com and interact with the Nordic Devzone community at devzone.nordicsemi.com.

Helen Leigh joined us to talk about putting together conferences (including Teardown 2024), indie hardware producers (including via Crowd Supply), and building communities. Teardown will be June 21-23 in Portland, OR, USA. More information about attending or presenting. Early bird tickets are available for a limited time! Teardown is put on by Crowd Supply, a company that helps hardware companies launch products. Hardware Happy Hour Portland is a regular meetup that Helen organizes. Helen will be hosting a meetup in Oakland, CA, USA on Feb 15: Oakland Sound Hackers. She is also hosting a San Francisco, CA meetup on March 6: Open Hardware Happy Hour.  Helen's personal site is helenleigh.me. She has been on the show twice before in 355: Favorite Ways to Make Noises and 261: Blowing Their Fragile Little Minds. Transcript Memfault is making software the most reliable part of the IoT with its device reliability platform that enables teams to be more proactive with remote debugging, monitoring and OTA update capabilities. Try Memfault's new sandbox demo at demo.memfault.com. Embedded.fm listeners receive 25% off their first-year contract with Memfault by booking a demo here: https://go.memfault.com/demo-request-embedded

Chris and Elecia chat with each other about motor encoder reading methods, conferences coming up, soldering irons, schematic reviews, looking for a new job, and general life.  Some conferences coming up in the embedded space: Embedded Online, April 29-May 4, virtual (Elecia will be speaking) Open Hardware Summit in May 3-4, Montreal, Canada Embedded World in April 9-11 in Nuremburg, Germany Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories was purchased by Bantam Tools! Starter soldering irons? It seemed like small pen-style ones were more popular than big soldering stations. See the Adafruit USB C Powered Soldering Iron - Adjustable Temperature Pen-Style - TS80P. Or for much less (but you can write your own firmware!), the Pinecil. And one vote for the RT Soldering Pen on Tindie because it uses Weller RT tips (which are more expensive than the soldering pen but much less expensive than the Weller station that uses the RT tips).  Embedded Artistry has excellent advice for the role of the firmware in schematic reviews.  Adafruit Playgrounds looks like a neat place to write up your project.  Transcript Nordic Semiconductor empowers wireless innovation, by providing hardware, software, tools and services that allow developers to create the IoT products of tomorrow. Learn more about Nordic Semiconductor at nordicsemi.com, check out the DevAcademy at academy.nordicsemi.com and interact with the Nordic Devzone community at devzone.nordicsemi.com.

Anders Nielsen joined us to talk about why the 6502 is the best processor.  Anders also sells 65uino kits on his store: imania.dk. For more explanation of what they are, how they work, attaching peripherals, and programming in assembly, look at Anders' YouTube channel @AndersNielsenAA, read his blog on abnielsen.com, or read about it on its Hackaday.io project page.** We also mentioned Ben Eater's 6502 Kit, Adrian's Digital Basement - YouTube, and Rodnay Zaks' Programming the 6502. ** Anders was a two time semi-finalist for the Hackaday Challenge but we didn't talk about that. Here is his Hackaday page. Transcript Memfault is making software the most reliable part of the IoT with its device reliability platform that enables teams to be more proactive with remote debugging, monitoring and OTA update capabilities. Try Memfault's new sandbox demo at demo.memfault.com. Embedded.fm listeners receive 25% off their first-year contract with Memfault by booking a demo here: https://go.memfault.com/demo-request-embedded.

Chris and Elecia talk about cars, fleeting moments of fame, their year, and the sorry state of tools in the embedded space. Chris became internet famous for asking a car dealership's chatbot (powered by ChatGPT) to generate Python code for fluid dynamics problems. After this, someone else asked the chatbot to sell a car for $1.  Pass the Bricks is an organization that takes Lego bricks and turns them into sets for kids who don't have any. Speaking of re-use, contact the show if you'd like to get in touch with Nelson. Chris is on 4 tracks on Flavigula's album Nine Sided Die. He also enjoyed putting together an EMSL Bulbdial clock kit.  Elecia will be speaking at the Embedded Online Conference. Transcript

Ralph Hempel spoke with us about the development of Lego Mindstorms from hacking the initial interface to running Debian Linux as well as programming Mindstorms in Python. Happy 25th birthday to Lego Mindstorms! Pybricks is a MicroPython based coding environment that works across all Lego PoweredUp hubs and on the latest Mindstorms elements. The creators are David Lechner and Laurens Valk. Ralph was the first person to boot a full Debian Linux distro on the brick, see EV3Dev, a Debian Linux for Lego Mindstorms EV3.  BrickLink was originally a site for third party resellers of new and used Lego sets and elements. The site was purchased by the Lego Group a few years ago. It's still a great place to buy individual parts - for example a 4 port PoweredUp hub to run the new PyBricks on :-) ReBrickable is a site dedicated to taking off-the-shelf Lego sets, and creating something new with the set. In particular see the MOCs Designed by LUCAMOCS, fantastic Technic vehicles as well as interesting designs for vehicle subsystems. Yoshihito ISOGAWA - YouTube is an absolute genius at coming up with practical applications of new LEGO Elements. Ralph recommends his books as “awesome to read”. LEGO uses 18 Cucumbers to build real Log House  Ralph highly recommends Test Driven Development for Embedded C  by James Grenning (who has been on the show: 270: Broccoli is Good Too, 109: Resurrection of Extreme Programming, and 30: Eventually Lightning Strikes). Origami Simulator and Elecia's origami generating python code on github Transcript Nordic Semiconductor empowers wireless innovation, by providing hardware, software, tools and services that allow developers to create the IoT products of tomorrow. Learn more about Nordic Semiconductor at nordicsemi.com, check out the DevAcademy at academy.nordicsemi.com and interact with the Nordic Devzone community at devzone.nordicsemi.com.

Yanina Bellini Saibene joined us to discuss teaching, localization, barriers to learning coding, and global communities.  Yani works on Teach Tech Together (https://teachtogether.tech/) with Greg Wilson. It is a fantastic resource if you are learning to teach. It is available in English and Spanish. She also works on The Carpentries which teaches coding and data science skills to researchers worldwide.  Yani has a site (yabellini.netlify.app) that includes the courses she has online (for free). She is also the community manager of rOpenSci and is part of R-Ladies. You can find Yani on fosstodon.org/@yabellini. Transcript

Chris and Elecia talk about their favorite processors, their breakfast preferences, large language model ethics, presents, and Eeyore's birthday. Elecia's new edition of her book  Making Embedded Systems is finished! (Except for a couple months of tech reviews, updating, copyediting, and drawings.) It will be out in March. All of the back issues of Byte Magazine Chris' radio kit that he mentioned but didn't name is the QRP Labs QCX+ 5W CW Transceiver. Transcript Nordic Semiconductor empowers wireless innovation, by providing hardware, software, tools and services that allow developers to create the IoT products of tomorrow. Learn more about Nordic Semiconductor at nordicsemi.com, check out the DevAcademy at academy.nordicsemi.com and interact with the Nordic Devzone community at devzone.nordicsemi.com.

Kevin Lannen is an embedded systems engineer making powered wheelchairs safer. This sounded interesting to us. Kevin works at LUCI Mobility (luci.com). Check out their tear jerker introduction video as well as technical description of over-the-air update concerns on smart wheelchairs. We also talked about the app that goes with the system: LUCI View. You can find Kevin on Twitter (@kevlan) and LinkedIn. Go Baby Go - The Adaptive Sports Connection Transcript Memfault is making software the most reliable part of the IoT with its device reliability platform that enables teams to be more proactive with remote debugging, monitoring and OTA update capabilities. Try Memfault's new sandbox demo at demo.memfault.com. Embedded.fm listeners receive 25% off their first-year contract with Memfault by booking a demo here: https://go.memfault.com/demo-request-embedded

Marian Petre spoke to us about her research on how to make software developers better at developing software. Marian is an Emeritus Professor of the School of Computing & Communications at the Open University in the United Kingdom. She also has a Wikipedia page.  The short version of How Expert Programmers Think About Errors is on the NeverWorkInTheory.org page along with other talks about academic studies on software development topics.   The longer version is a keynote from Strange Loop 2022: "Expert Software Developers' Approach to Error". This concept as well as many others are summarized in Software Design Decoded: 66 Ways Experts Think (Mit Press) by Marian Petre and Andre van der Hoek (MIT Press, 2016). The book's website provides an annotated bibliography. Marian has also co-written Software Designers in Action: A Human-Centric Look at Design Work. She is current conducting inquiries into: Code dreams: This research studies whether software developers dream about coding – and, if so, the nature of those dreams.  Following on from work on software developers' mental imagery and cognitive processes during programming, this project investigates developers' experience of coding in their dreams (whatever form that takes), and whether the content of such dreams provides insight into the developers' design and problem solving. Invisible work that adds value to software development: The notion of ‘invisible work' – activity that adds value in software development but is often overlooked or undervalued by management and promotion processes – arose repeatedly in discussions at Strange Loop 2022.  Developers asked for evidence they could use to fuel conversations -- and potentially promote change -- in their organisations. This research aims to capture the main categories of ‘invisible work' identified by developers (e.g., reducing technical debt; improving efficiency; addressing security; development of tools and resources; design discussions; …), and to gather concrete examples of the value that work adds to software.   Transcript  

Chris and Elecia discuss the pros and cons of completing one project or starting a dozen.  Elecia's 2nd edition of Making Embedded Systems is coming out in March. (Preview is on O'Reilly's Learning System.) She's working on a companion repository that is already filled with links and goodies: github.com/eleciawhite/making-embedded-systems.  If you'd like to know more about signal processing, check out DSPGuide.com aka The Scientist and Engineer's Guide to Digital Signal Processing By Steven W. Smith, Ph.D. And as noted in last week's newsletter, there is an interesting overlap between smoothies and the Fourier Transform.  Giang Vinh Loc used  Charles Lohr's RISCV on Arduino UNO to boot Linux (in 16 hours).  We also talked a bit about Greg Wilson's recent episode with Elecia (Embedded 460: I Don't Care What Your Math Says). Transcript Thanks to Nordic for sponsoring this week's show! Nordic Semiconductor empowers wireless innovation, by providing hardware, software, tools and services that allow developers to create the IoT products of tomorrow. Learn more about Nordic Semiconductor at nordicsemi.com, check out the DevAcademy at academy.nordicsemi.com and interact with the Nordic Devzone community at devzone.nordicsemi.com.

Author, engineer, manager, and professor, Dr. Greg Wilson joined Elecia to talk about teaching, science in computer science, ethics, and policy. The request for curriculum that started the conversation was the Cost of Change, part of NeverWorkInTheory which summarizes scientific literature about software development.  Greg is the founder of Software Carpentry, a site that creates curriculum for teaching software concepts (including data and library science). Software Carpentry has great lessons for those who want to learn about software, data, and library science. It is a great site if you are teaching, trying to get someone else to teach, learning, or looking for some guidance on how to do the above. Check out their reading list. Greg's site is The Third Bit. Here you can find his books including full copies of several of his books including The Architecture of Open Source Applications, Teaching Tech Together, and most recently Software Design by Example.  Transcript

Professor AnnMarie Thomas spoke with us about playful learning through joy,  whimsy, surprise, and meeting new people.  We also spoke with AnnMarie about how adults can foster an environment that encourages innovation. See more about that (and the interviews of various engineers and makers) in her book Making Makers: Kids, Tools, and the Future of Innovation You can find AnnMarie on Mastodon: mastodon.social/@AnnMariePT If you want to know more about squishy circuits, check out AnnMarie's TED talk: Hands-on science with squishy circuits (or the related book Squishy Circuits (21st Century Skills Innovation Library: Makers as Innovators)). She is the head of The Playful Learning Lab at the University of St. Thomas where she is a professor of engineering and entrepreneurship.  We also talked about the LEGO Foundation. More about that on LearningThroughPlay.com AnnMarie suggested the cephalopod-centric novel The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler. Elecia countered with The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery (non-fiction). And now, a question for you to ponder, what is your most meaningful learning experience? Transcript

Trond Snekvik spoke with us about developing VSCode extensions and Bluetooth meshes. Trond is a Staff Software Engineer at Nordic Semiconductor. Nordic's Visual Studio Code Extensions include device tree and kconfig support for the Zephyr project as well as tools for nRF Connect.  Trond's github page: github.com/trond-snekvik In 329: At Least 32-Bits, Thank You, Kate Stewart of the Linux Foundation spoke with us about Zephyr in 2020  Transcript Thank you to Christopher for providing a picture of what may (or may not) be a troll.

Chris and Elecia chat about their ongoing efforts to create and learn. Then they answer some listener questions.  Duck quacks do echo but the echoes seem to align in phase so that there is no interruption making the echo sounds like an extension of the quack (Mythbusters episode in which Jamie says “Quack, damn you!”) Elecia continues to work on Making Embedded Systems, 2nd Edition. The early release copy is available on the O'Reilly Learning System. Classpert is offering an asynchronous cohort for Elecia's Making Embedded Systems course.  You'd be going through the class with others and there will be discussions and mentor (and Elecia's) help on the Discord. No live classes but you get access to the best bits of the previous live classes. Class starts in September. Tickets are on sale for the tenth annual Hackaday Supercon is Nov 3-5, 2023 in Pasadena, CA. Someone there will be giving out stickers. More details to follow on that front.  Elecia is enjoying OrigamibyBoice Crease Pattern Class YouTube series. (It is a prereq for The Plant Psychologist's Origami Design Class.) Last week's newsletter (sign up here!) had tidbits about learning the Kalman filter. Some of that came from Elecia's blog post about it, some were fresh.  There doesn't seem to be a good introduction to semantic webs in linguistics. Here is a too-dense article about Semantic Maps as Metrics on Meaning from a Linguistics Discovery Journal. If you like the show and would like to support the show, we now take Ko-fi donations (https://ko-fi.com/embedded), as well as Patreon and reviews in your favorite podcasting app.  Transcript

Damien George spoke with us about developing with and for MicroPython while Elecia tries not to spill all the secrets about her client. To start at the beginning, you probably want to check out micropython.org. Wait, no, one step back. Before listening to the show, you probably should read the Wikipedia MicroPython entry because we kind of start in the middle in the show. You can find the code on github: github.com/micropython/micropython. The PyBoard can be found on store.micropython.org. It is out of stock but lead time trends show parts may be available soon(ish). For more about branes, Lie point symmetries  and other physics fun stuff, check out Damien's list of papers on dpgeorge.net. Transcript

Natalie Friedman joins us to discuss when, where, how, and why robots should wear clothing. Natalie is a PhD candidate at Cornell Tech.  Natalie's website is natalie-friedman.com and you can find her papers in the research section. She has an Instagram account: @natalie.victoria.f AIForGood shows several robots dressed in home, business and social attire. Roomba cosplaying a mouse (Instructable) Pepper is an android-ish robot made by SoftBank. There are many clothing lines devoted to dressing it for whatever occasion you need, simply search for Pepper robot clothing. What could go wrong? Natalie recommended Fashion Is Spinach by Elizabeth Hawes. It is fascinating. Transcript

Uri Shaked surprises us with a chat about silicon design when we were expecting to talk about a web-based board simulator.  If you want to try your hand at silicon design, check out Tiny Tapeout, a way to possibly get your design on to real silicon. The digital design guide is a great way to start looking at how chips work. If you aren't quite ready for silicon, Wokwi has a Verilog simulator where you can learn to do the digital design. The Verilog Simon Game on Wokwi is amazing.  Wokwi is a web-Based simulator, simulating processors, boards, and peripherals. You can build a whole system there, from Dancing Servos to 7-Segment display from 30  LCDs and Arduino Mega to Raspberry Pi Pico boards you can program in C when you click More Options on the front page. You can also create your own peripheral using the Chip API. Or learn to use Zephyr on Wokwi. And now there is Wokwi for VS Code.  All that and Wokwi is open source: github.com/urish Uri recommends reading Relax for the same result by Derek Sivers Previously on Embedded 396: Untangle the Mess Transcript

Nathan Jones has been talking about building command line interfaces, good design practices in C, creating MCU boards, wielding the PIC of destiny, and going beyond Arduino. As we are too lazy to attend the conferences, we asked him to give us the highlights.  Nathan is giving two conference talks at Crowd Supply's Teardown 2023 June 23-24 in Portland, Oregon: Make Your Own MCU Board Build HackerBox #0040 and Wield the PIC of Destiny! He spoke recently at the Embedded Online Conference about Object Oriented Programming (well, really good design practices). He has a related github repository so you can look at the examples for yourself. He also gave a workshop on creating a simple command line interface (another excellent github repo full of examples). Probably the best place to start is his Embedded for Everyone Wiki where he collects all the bits and pieces you might want to know about getting into embedded systems. Transcript