Embedded

Chris Svec returns to the show to discuss the messy, non-linear realities of engineering management and onboarding new college graduates. We explore why companies should bother hiring fresh grads in the first place, how to prevent junior developers from going dark when they get stuck, and why admitting ignorance publicly is an absolute workplace superpower. Along the way, we dive into managing gen...

Tyler Hoffman returns to the show to discuss diagnostics and observability data in embedded systems. We catch up on his life after startup acquisition, explore the hows and whys of keeping product data separate from operational data, and consider the realities of fleet management at scale.  Tyler is the co-founder of Memfault . Memfault was acquired by Nordic Semiconductor about a year ago. While...

Chris and Elecia talk about pushing out of their comfort zone, networking advice, adding STARs and action verbs to resumes, using rust, thermo forming plastics, soldering together audio gear, and winning awards.  If you are looking for an update to your resume or are interviewing for a new job and you haven't heard of the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result), it is a good way to formulate...

Dr. Victoria Serrano spoke with us about STEM outreach, fostering curiosity, and inspiring students with engineering education. Victoria is a professor at the Technological University of Panama (her faculty page: UTP | Dra. Victoria Serrano ). Her youtube channel is CIATEC PANAMA which talks about circuits, electronics, and robotics. The channel goes along with her ciatecpanama.com website which s...

Dr. Tom Williams spoke with us about robots, ethics, teaching, and books. Then we talked about mines, umpires, water, and more books. Tom is the author of Degrees of Freedom: On Robotics and Social Justice (free at MIT Press: Degrees of Freedom: On Robotics and Social Justice !).  As part of the discussion, we talked about some other books and media: Nonfiction: Sex, Race, and Robots: How to Be Hu...

Nathan Jones spoke with us about hardware security, motivation, conference talks, and writing. Nathan wrote an in-depth series of posts about the benefits of superloops vs RTOS: You Don't Need an RTOS (Part 1) , Part 2 , Part 3 , and Part 4 . He also wrote about How Hardware Gets Hacked (Part 1) and Part 2 which discusses the MITRE embedded CTF (Capture the Flag) challenge . See his EmbeddedRelate...

Chris and Elecia chat about Leapfrog toys, things they like, large company politics, awards, and open source governance.  The Toy Story 5 Trailer with LilyPad toy which is suspiciously similar to the LeapFrog LeapPad tablet. Which is different from the original LeapPad which had cartridges and capacitive touch (capacitive touch was used on the globe as well… the latest globe also has a screen ). W...

Sonia Grego speaks with us about a topic no one likes to talk about, but could be used to monitor personal dietary health and widespread disease outbreaks. Toilets! Sonia leads Duke University's Smart Toilet Lab and the spin out Coprata which makes the Microbiome Activity Tracker.  As discussed in the show, when developing a project far from where it will be deployed, there are many common issues....

Kenneth Finnegan entertained us with stories about accidentally contributing to the internet's ability to network. Wondering how the internet works? All those terms about IPv4, IPv6, BGP, OSPF, CDN and other alphabet  soup? Check out the YouTube videos by NetworkChuck . Kenneth writes about his adventures on his blog, The Life of Kenneth . Some of the posts related to this show are: Creating an In...

Chris and Elecia apologize, discuss uses and abuses of chatbots, reach out to an uncertain manager, try to help someone out of their professor's draconian rules, and extol the joys of reading.  Chabot Space & Science Center is in Oakland, CA, US. It is wonderful! Some suggestions for UncertainManager: Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Resilient Management Manager's...

Mark Omo and James Rowley spoke with us about safecracking, security, and the ethics of doing a bad job. Mark and James gave an excellent talk on the development of their safecracking tools at DEF CON 33: Cash, Drugs, and Guns: Why Your Safes Aren't Safe . It included a section of interaction involving the lock maker's lawyers bullying them and how the Electronic Frontier Foundation ( EFF ) has a...

James Cameron spoke with us about programming for and operating a large telescope. The show is a blend of astronomy, engineering on the fly, and weird lady bug habitats.  The Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) is part of the Australian National University's Siding Spring Observatory in Coonabarabran, New South Wales, Australia.  The AAT has an all sky camera where you can check in on a very dark sky...

Nathan Jones and Chris Svec give Chris and Elecia their 2025 performance review.  Donations went to Elevate Tutoring , an organization that provides funding and support to low-income and first-generation college students as well as free STEM tutoring for underserved schools.  Embedded has already sent in the match to the donations for a total of over $5000.  Here is a list of all Embedded.fm episo...

Sophi Kravitz joined us to talk about art, science, and engineering.  You can see Messages from Space on Sophi's website /sophikravitz.com ). A subset of the artwork had a short stay for a demo at Chabot Space & Science Center . The completed work will be shown in 2026. Sophi mentioned collaborating with two sonic environment artists Sofy Yuditskaya and Ria Rajan . Geiger–Müller tube is an ionizin...

Nick Kartsioukas joined us to talk about security in embedded systems.  Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures ( CVE ) is the primary database to check your software libraries, tools, and OSs: cve.org . Open Worldwide Application Security Project ( OWASP , owasp.org ) has information on how to improve security in all kinds of applications, including embedded application security . There are also che...

Philip Koopman joined us to talk about embedded systems becoming embodied and intelligent. We focus on the safety considerations of making an intelligent and embodied device.  Phil's new book is Embodied AI Safety: Reimagining safety engineering for artificial intelligence in physical systems . It uses robotaxis as an example as it discusses safety, security, human/computer interface, AI, and a bi...

Jason Turner of C++ Weekly and Empty Crate spoke with us about the joy of puzzles, the changing directions of an interesting career, and the C++ programming language. I mean, of course we talked about C++. But only a little.  Jason recently published Programming Puzzles Big Book: 400 pages of fun for ages 7-99 , a book of puzzles for the logically minded. It teaches programming concepts as engagin...

Katherine "Smalls" Connell spoke with us about making thin and flexible circuits, making stretchable electronics, and running a successful Kickstarter. Katherine's Kickstarter: Sprite Lights LED Body Art (light-up tattoo) . Katherine shares her makes, describing her build process for companion robots and other projects. You can find her as The Small Wonder on Hackster.io and Hackaday.io . She ofte...

Chris and Elecia talk about the show overflowing to another bit, fight over vim vs nano, consider awards, discuss writing (and self-motivation), consider linear algebra on AI cores, encourage remote device quality assurance, describe design documentation, review timer multipliers, and consider changing chip vendors. A list of all Embedded Episodes Support the show and get goodies: Patreon/embedded...

Christina Cyr spoke with us about building cell phones, entrepreneurship, social purpose corporations, awards, lithium recycling, and her interesting career path.  We talked about Christina's Cyrcle Phone , the related kit from dTOOR, and her CES Innovation Award . We also mentioned Fairphone in the section about social purpose corporation . There is a great paper from Nature about lithium-ion bat...

Steve Hinch wrote a book about engineering, innovation, and business. He shares decades of wisdom gleaned from his career at Hewlett-Packard and Agilent as an engineer, manager, marketing director, and general manager.  Steve's book is Winning through Innovation: Lessons from the Front Lines of Business . While mostly retired, Steve is an executive consultant, see his website to get in touch: Step...

William Griffin spoke to us about hardware-in-the-loop testing, simulation, terminology, learning complex topics, and books. We don't usually expand upon the show title but Wikipedia has a rabbit hole called Evil demon so there you go. Books mentioned: Make: Electronic Music from Scratch: A Beginner's Guide to Homegrown Audio Gizmos CMOS Cookbook How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of Intan...

Chris and Elecia chat about books, courses, alternate podcasts, electronics, statistics, kidnapping Roo, and journaling failures.  The Embedded Patreon book club is reading Data-Driven Science and Engineering: Machine Learning, Dynamical Systems, and Control by Steven L. Brunton, J. Nathan Kutz. PDF book and links to lectures are at databookuw.com . Some recent links of interest: Datasaurus dozen...

Dmitry Grinberg joined us to talk about running Linux on small microprocessors (physically small and/or 4-bit). Dmitry does this by emulating a MIPS processor. Boot times vary between minutes and days, depending on the processor.  Dmitry's projects are on his website ( dmitry.gr ) including: 8-pin Linux (Cortex-M0+!) Linux on an 8-bit micro? Linux/4004 Dmitry recommended NandGame , an online game...

We spoke with Peter Griffin about Jumperless Breadboards, no-install GUI development, Excel, and puppies. Jumperless Breadboard at CrowdSupply Colab GUI for Jumperless Breadboard Website GUI for Jumperless Breadboard Excel GUI for Jumperless Breadboard (though it has some USB DTR issues as noted in the show: Jumperless_V5_GUI (Shared).xlsx . Note Microsoft Datastreamer is a serial interface to Exc...