500: Nerding Out About the Ducks
Embedded
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 which hosts her blog as well as contact info. She will be speaking on . 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...
info_outline
499: This Is Your Problem
Embedded
We spoke with Janet Hansen about the world of professional costumery (with electronics) and becoming an artist. Janet’s business is where you can find custom illuminated clothing as well as Janet’s ready-made art. Janet’s personal site is which is more focused on her artistic pursuits. Janet mentioned Seeed’s . We talked about Janet’s light up pillow with Debra Ansell on . 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...
info_outline
498: To Consume Stickers
Embedded
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 ! You can also sign up for the . Maybe now with job postings? Elecia’s journaling notebook is (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...
info_outline
497: Everyone Likes Tiny
Embedded
OpenMV has a new Kickstarter so CEO Kwabena Agyeman chatted with us about more powerful (and smaller!) programmable cameras. See ’s site for their existing cameras. See for the super powerful N6 and the ridiculously small AE3. Note that OpenMV still is committed to open source. See their 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 . This organization was formerly the TinyML Foundation. and are companies that aid in creating and training AI models that can be put...
info_outline
496: Beauty, Elegance, Consistency
Embedded
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 and the website with the course lecture notes, slides, videos, simulators, and everything you need is . Shimon mentioned his work with teaching math, that is . You can find out more about Shimon’s other projects on his site (including his fascinating TED talk: ). Shimon’s co-author is Noam Nisan who...
info_outline
495: Shortcut the Difficulties of Reality
Embedded
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 where she runs the . The papers we discussed are . You can find a longer list of Cindy’s papers on . The is especially interesting. 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...
info_outline
494: All Tech Is Wearable
Embedded
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 ). She has been writing for . Debra won one of the SuperCon badge so her poseable will be available at SuperCon Europe. Some other things we mentioned: Martin Oehler is Maketvee on and Janet Hansen is on and has an incredible wearables website. #makergiftexchange on your favorite social media platform And some...
info_outline
493: Put the Peeps in the Chili Pot
Embedded
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 . Chris has been working with Micropython (we talked with Damien George about Micropython on ). He’s using a Pyboard to start, but is looking to move on to from Sparkfun. Wikipedia . Elecia talked about her experience using to drive unit tests. She also talked about some facts from . Chris’ telescope is the . There’s also a smaller now which has...
info_outline
492: Octopus Army
Embedded
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 and was amazed by some of the ideas that folks implemented (see SuperCon ). Nathan , highlighting some of his ideas for a book. If you’d like to try your hand at the badge, find it on Nathan’s . Nathan also spoke recently at the Embedded Online Conference (, , and ) and the Teardown Conference ( and ). If you have an idea you’d like to propose, check out O’Reilly’s . While you may not go with them, the proposal is a good place...
info_outline
491: Oscillators Oscillating Other Oscillators
Embedded
Chris and Elecia spoke with Kirk Pearson about running audio-electronic-art workshops, interesting sounds, and their book Find the book and a whole kit of parts on the . A few clicks from there you can find the (don’t forget the coupon in the show audio). We also mentioned The Thing (), Elliot Williams’ writing on CMOS synthesizers () and the videos of Sebastian Tomczak (YouTube: ). 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...
info_outlineChris 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.