Embedded

Embedded is the show for people who love gadgets. Making them, breaking them, and everything in between. Weekly interviews with engineers, educators, and enthusiasts. Find the show, blog, and more at embedded.fm.

220: Cascading Waterfall of Lights (Repeat) 09/17/2020

220: Cascading Waterfall of Lights (Repeat) Ben Hencke () spoke with us about OHWS, Tindie, and blinking lights. Ben sells his on his . It is based on the ESP8266 and uses the . To hear John Leeman’s trip report on the Open Hardware Summit (OHWS), listen to Ben’s websites are and . Go there if you want to see some of Ben’s projects, including Synthia. You can also find Ben on , , and . We talked with Charles Lohr about ESP8266 WiFi controlled lights and ColorChord on Embedded.fm episode . More about the (and an for it!) /episode/index/show/makingembeddedsystems/id/16056032

344: Superposition, Entanglement, and Interference 09/10/2020

344: Superposition, Entanglement, and Interference Kitty Yeung spoke with us about the superposition of quantum computing and fashion. If you want to learn more about quantum computing, check out Kitty’s series on Hackaday’s . Kitty works for Microsoft in . Kitty’s art and fashion are available on her site, , and shop . Her recent addition is the . There is a coupon code in the show. Kitty has some other DIY fashion projects: and . on Instagram /episode/index/show/makingembeddedsystems/id/15967109

343: Getting Brains to Work 09/04/2020

343: Getting Brains to Work Chris and Elecia discuss transcripts, listener emails, and brains. We already have a post about the dangers of using . Elecia got a to help her make origami and then discovered SVG files were editable (). She’s putting her origami crease patterns in a github repo ), where else would you put it? About brains, Elecia was reading from . /episode/index/show/makingembeddedsystems/id/15878996

342: That Girl's Brain 08/27/2020

342: That Girl's Brain Jess Frazelle of Oxide Computer spoke with us about hyperscalers (large companies that make their own datacenter server hardware) and podcasts. Jess wrote an article about the power efficiency measurements of datacenter servers: (ACM Queue August 2020). The Oxide podcast is available on as well as your usual podcast apps. Jess particularly recommended . Oxide is working to make hyperscaler-style hardware available to everyone. Their goal is to open source all their hardware and software: . They use the Rust language for much of their development. Jess has a blog: /episode/index/show/makingembeddedsystems/id/15785057

236: The Concept of Delayed Gratification (Repeat) 08/20/2020

236: The Concept of Delayed Gratification (Repeat) gave us new ideas about musical instruments, detailing how wonderful expressive control, 3D buttons, and keyscanning can be. Roger’s company is . We talked extensively about the , some about the for guitar, and only a little bit about the analog drum machine . A is a popular way to handle a large number of buttons but it falls prey to . Roger adds force sense resistors to this (). If you have an idea for an instrument, Roger has already to your request for a prototype. Roger gave a about the LinnStrument, including showing the sounds it can make. is the one handed musical instrument society enabling music making for everyone. Roger mentioned some other expressive instruments including: /episode/index/show/makingembeddedsystems/id/15694274

341: Big Hugs to Everybody 08/13/2020

341: Big Hugs to Everybody Phoenix Perry returns to speak with us about education and the importance of merging art and technology. Phoenix’s website is . The art installation crossing the virtual and the physical world was called . Phoenix is teaching a free online class: . Phoenix is the Master’s degree coordinator for University of the Arts London . Diversity and accessibility are important, some resources: by David Paris by Mary Flanagan by Cathy O'Neil (Steam game) (Steam game) (Mobile game) (Mobile game) Phoenix was previously on /episode/index/show/makingembeddedsystems/id/15605903

340: The Left Bunny Slipper 08/06/2020

340: The Left Bunny Slipper Chris and Elecia talk about getting transcriptions, accessibility, operating systems, and networking. Elecia recommends reading by Haben Girma (). Transcripts will initially be only available to Patreon supporters. To become a Patreon supporter, go to . If you can’t be a supporter and still really want the transcripts, hit the contact link. Chris Gammell’s nifty new podcast (video!) is . Want to know more about how operating systems work? Listeners recommended . Chris answered some questions about . More information about the layers of the network can be found in the . The mobile focused LISP project that Chris worked on is now at and has pointers for more documentation and code. /episode/index/show/makingembeddedsystems/id/15511622

339: Integrity of the Curling Club 07/30/2020

339: Integrity of the Curling Club Dan Zimmerman spoke with us about voting, voting machines, building trust in software, and transparency. Dan works for Galois ( , ) and Free and Fair (, ). He worked on the US Vote Foundation’s . The artifacts from that project are on github: . Dan (and Galois) worked with Microsoft on , a suite of tools to help make elections end-to-end verifiable, The tools are open source: The verifiable online election system is also open source: We failed to talk about the DARPA and but if you are still reading the show notes, they might be of interest. We also didn’t talk about the National Academies report on . /episode/index/show/makingembeddedsystems/id/15419192

338: Working With People Is Terrible 07/24/2020

338: Working With People Is Terrible In a surprising turn of tables, Christopher White joins the show as a guest to talk about his career, burnout, and musical instruments. Christopher attended for his undergrad mathematics degree then got a Master’s degree in physics at . Some things he has worked on include: His current band is 12ax7 (). The outro music is a track called “Solstice”. /episode/index/show/makingembeddedsystems/id/15333701

337: Not Completely Explode 07/16/2020

337: Not Completely Explode Kate Temkin explained USB: how to get started, general orientation, useful tools, and when you’d use it in embedded systems. Kate’s website is . She works at . References for USB: by Jan Axelson by Jan Axelson USB Stacks we talked about: from Adafruit Cortex For the host side: Open Source VIDs are available from and Kate recently gave a talk . Part of the talk was about , an FPGA based USB multitool. Some open source FPGA tools: Yosys: /episode/index/show/makingembeddedsystems/id/15240356

336: Common Sense Is Not Common Sense 07/02/2020

336: Common Sense Is Not Common Sense Philana Benton spoke with us about mentoring: how to be a good mentor, what to expect, and what not to do. If you’d like to try mentoring, sign up for Philana’s DivTekSpace (). You can do a resume review, a mock interview, give career advice, and/or refer students to your company. Philana’s home page is We also mentioned /episode/index/show/makingembeddedsystems/id/15068411

335: Patching on the Surface of Mars 06/25/2020

335: Patching on the Surface of Mars Joel Sherrill spoke with us about choosing embedded operating systems and why open source RTEMS is a good choice. : Chris and Elecia talk about when and where they’d use RTOSs : Delicious Gumbo: Joel gave an introduction to the RTEMS RTOS Joel works at OAR Corp () on RTEMS (). RTEMS runs on many development boards including the BeagleBone, Raspberry Pi, and two FPGA boards: and the . Joel recommends the operating systems book by Alan Burns and Andy Wellens. It comes in many flavors and editions including . NASA Core Flight System () Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System (EPICS) /episode/index/show/makingembeddedsystems/id/14970176

226: Camp AVR Vs. Camp Microchip (Repeat) 06/18/2020

226: Camp AVR Vs. Camp Microchip (Repeat) Jay Carlson , author of , joined us to talk about comparing microcontrollers and determining our biases. This was an in-depth comparison of different micro features. Jay is an electrical engineer specializing in electronics design and embedded programming (). His is new and interesting. We talked to SEGGER’s Dirk Akeman about JLink on . /episode/index/show/makingembeddedsystems/id/14883110

334: Bag of Heuristics 06/11/2020

334: Bag of Heuristics Matt Godbolt joined us to talk about assembly code, becoming a verb, 6502s, exploring compilers, and application binary interfaces. Compiler Explorer can be found at . The code is on github (). Matt also has jsbeeb, a BBC Micro (6502) simulator. You can try it out at . Its code and more information is on github (). Matt recently gave a video . Some other videos that may be of interest: CppCon 2016: Jason Turner “” - Anders Schau Knatten CppCon 2017: CB Bailey “” CppCon 2017: Carl Cook “” The best compiler book seems to be . on writing interfaces. /episode/index/show/makingembeddedsystems/id/14791721

333: Project Purgatory 06/04/2020

333: Project Purgatory Bailey Steinfadt spoke with us about the makerspaces, communities, following many paths, and misbehaving robots. Bailey works at and . is a non-profit maker space in the Des Moines, Iowa area. They supported their local emergency services with over 6000 face shields. If you are looking for something to do with your 3d printer, look at and . Bailey recommended the podcast and grill mats for soldering. Elecia recommended the as a book she’s only picked up once in a bookstore years ago but has thought about as an excuse to pick up new skills. /episode/index/show/makingembeddedsystems/id/14702714

332: There Were Fires 05/29/2020

332: There Were Fires Doug Harriman of Simplexity spoke with us about motors, controllers, and designing mechatronic systems. (or if you want to them) Doug recommends . Elecia recommends by Jiří Lebl from American Institute of Mathematics list of . They both like the YouTube channel. If you liked the part about how to choose a motor, you might want to watch Doug’s Webinar on (you’ll have to give your info to see it). /episode/index/show/makingembeddedsystems/id/14610017

331: Friendly Tea Kettle 05/21/2020

331: Friendly Tea Kettle Dr. Katy Huff spoke with us about nuclear engineering, effective software development, and the apropos command. Katy wrote an O’Reilly book describing Python software development to scientists: . She has been involved with . Katy is a at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering. She uses in her Nuclear Reactor Theory class. Janelle Shane creates the blog. (She was also a guest in .) /episode/index/show/makingembeddedsystems/id/14518943

330: I Just Want a Dog 05/14/2020

330: I Just Want a Dog Chris Svec chatted with us about going from engineer to manager and working from home. Chris had many book recommendations (these are affiliate links): by Hank Green (fiction) by Daniel Pink by Camille Fournier by Lara Hogan by Frederick P. Brooks Jr. by Michael Lopp by Dale Carnegie Chris is hiring for his team. Check out the or look at the specific jobs he’s hiring for (in Boston, MA): and . Chris gave a talk to Purdue students about working from home, there is a and a . about the difference between working from home and what people are doing now. The Canadian Federal government gave the following advice: Finally, Svec’s family wants a cat. They probably won’t get a despite it matching all the criteria. Maybe an . Or maybe a dog. /episode/index/show/makingembeddedsystems/id/14425577

190: Trust Me, I'm Right (Repeat) 05/07/2020

190: Trust Me, I'm Right (Repeat) Matt Godbolt () spoke with us about settling arguments with . Compiler Explorer comes in different flavors: You can see the beta version by putting a beta on the end: This a fully open source project. You can read the code and/or run your own version: Matt works at DRW working on low latency software. Note that . You can read about . Matt’s personal blog is . You might like parts about . He also has including and . Matt was previously at . Jason Turner of and his paper (with a nod to ’s Fun Paper Friday) /episode/index/show/makingembeddedsystems/id/14331008

329: At Least 32-Bits, Thank You 04/30/2020

329: At Least 32-Bits, Thank You Kate Stewart of the Linux Foundation spoke with us about the . Some Zephyr docs: Two projects using Zephyr: Open Artificial Pancreas System () talk at Embedded Linux Conference 2019 /episode/index/show/makingembeddedsystems/id/14225258

328: Debugging Like a Monkey 04/23/2020

328: Debugging Like a Monkey Christopher and Elecia discuss listener questions about USB, thesis projects, prototype iterations, motivation, and processor cores. Chris has been using to mix audio remotely in real time. /episode/index/show/makingembeddedsystems/id/14121440

327: A Little Bit of Human Knowledge 04/09/2020

327: A Little Bit of Human Knowledge Daniel Situnayake spoke with us about machine learning on microcontrollers. Dan is the author of . You can read the first several chapters at . TinyML is a part of TensorFlow Lite. See the . Dan works for which is making tools for easier machine learning integration at the edge. Their tools are free and they also have a . Dan recently posted on the Edge Impulse blog about . For TinyML meetups and a forum, check out : low cost sensors transmitting to space /episode/index/show/makingembeddedsystems/id/13927499

326: Wrong in the Right Way 04/02/2020

326: Wrong in the Right Way Erin Talvitie spoke with us about machine learning, hallucinating data, and making good decisions based on imperfect predictions. Paper we discussed: Erin’s grant: For a reinforcement learning book, Erin suggests or . For a machine learning book, Elecia likes /episode/index/show/makingembeddedsystems/id/13826753

325: Hasn’t Been R2D2'd 03/26/2020

325: Hasn’t Been R2D2'd John Saunders spoke with us about building a Johnny Five robot on his NYC CNC YouTube channel . You can find all of the Johnny Five build videos on or check out the . As mentioned, did a lot of the preliminary work. John recommends books: John is also the founder of (they have a contact page). /episode/index/show/makingembeddedsystems/id/13719830

324: I’ll Let You Name Your Baby 03/19/2020

324: I’ll Let You Name Your Baby Adam Wolf of Wayne and Layne spoke with us about making kits, museum exhibit engineering, working on KiCad, and extraterrestrial art philosophy. Adam has a personal blog on as well as a website . Adam co-wrote If you want to know how to contribute to KiCad libraries, check out their instruction page: We also mentioned: : tools to autogenerate KiCad artifacts when committing to git : open source Python library for making displays : application framework OKGo and /episode/index/show/makingembeddedsystems/id/13621997

207: I Love My Robot Monkey Head (Repeat) 03/12/2020

207: I Love My Robot Monkey Head (Repeat) of joins us to talk about robotics including how androids interact with humans. Some of her favorite robot include the , the , and, for home-hacking, the . Ayanna has a profile on , 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 . It uses a , with coupon noted in show. (don't use PayPal to check out or you can't apply the coupon). Other robots for trying out robots: (lots of , , and !), t, . Some robotics competition leagues include , , and . /episode/index/show/makingembeddedsystems/id/13530407

323: Snail Appnote 03/05/2020

323: Snail Appnote Carmen Parisi spoke with us about changing jobs from a semiconductor specialist at TI to an electrical engineering generalist at Wasatch Photonics. Carmen was previously on and formerly was the host of podcast Carmen works at making . /episode/index/show/makingembeddedsystems/id/13433978

322: Learn Assembly Code 02/28/2020

322: Learn Assembly Code Ramiro Montes De Oca spoke with us about modular electronics, chiplets, and his company aThing.io Project Tinkertoy is a 1953 US Navy project on automated manufacturing of modular electronics. Ramiro mentioned his accelerator: /episode/index/show/makingembeddedsystems/id/13333640

321: The Edge of Science Fiction 02/21/2020

321: The Edge of Science Fiction Jason Derleth of the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts Program spoke with us about what it takes to win a NIAC award. : Note: Solicitations open in June 2020! We first heard about NIAC talking to Ariel Waldman. Her site has some advice and encouragement for applying. Ariel was on of the show. Elecia’s one-page overview of . /episode/index/show/makingembeddedsystems/id/13241429

320: Why Isn't This Working? 02/14/2020

320: Why Isn't This Working? Chris Gammell of The Amp Hour and Contextual Electronics joined Christopher and Elecia to talk about firmware, learning, and books. Chris is the host of , a podcast about electronics and electrical engineering. Chris is also the founder of , where you can go to learn how to create electronics. Chris has a long running blog called Analog Life, found on his webpage , Chris is learning firmware as part of his consulting business. He likes Elecia’s book. KiCon is happening at CERN in September 2020. More information at . We talked about Jay Carlson who was on Embedded talking about his project () and about teaching embedded systems () We talked about book club books: And a fun book series called (the is especially good). (The outro music is Chris W.’s attempt to troll Chris G. with his “lightning” round answer) /episode/index/show/makingembeddedsystems/id/13145249

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