Embedded

Jen Costillo ( @r0b0ts0nf1r3 ) joins Elecia and Christopher to discuss their experiences interviewing (both as interviewer and interviewee). Elecia did an hour long webinar on how to conduct technical interviews. In this show, she mentions a good post-interview ratings system . Google discovered that their brainteasers are not a very effective way to interview. Despite the news that  swearing is g...

Christopher White ( @stoneymonster ) and Elecia celebrate a year in podcasting by talking about the show. Then they decide whether or not to change the name of the show to Embedded (yes). Elecia's list of current and soon activities: Hackaday Prize (SPACE!!!!!) and snooping on current entries Element14 blog based on her EELive Internet of Things talk Shopping list for the are-you-ok widget first d...

Tenaya Hurst ( @ArduinoWoman ) shares her incredible enthusiasm for teaching Arduino and the San Jose's Tech Museum of Innovation ( The Tech ). Being a geo-anthrop-actress, Tenaya teaches chemistry, geology, Arduino, and beginning wearables for the Tech, for their Galileo summer camp , for Oakland's Workshop Weekend , and on her own recognizance through her website .  Tenaya will be at the Linino...

Dr. Kevin Shaw, CTO of Sensor Platforms , spoke with Elecia about his career progressing from designing MEMS to building a company that makes sensor fusion algorithms. Wandering from the Internet of Things to Singularity University to power management in Android development, Kevin and Elecia had a wide-ranging conversation. Due in July, check out Sensor Platform's  Open Sensor Platform project, an...

Nathan Tuck joined Christopher White ( @stoneymonster ) and Elecia White to chat about varied topics relating to being an embedded (and graphics) engineer (and manager). Nate works at NVidia on the Tegra K1-64 . He mentioned some openings in his team at the end of the podcast, email the show to get a connection. We also noted that Eyefluence is hiring for an EE and/or technician for work somewhere...

Jennelle Crothers ( @jkc137 ) explained to Elecia what a technology evangelist does. Of course, it wasn't an embedded technology but it was still amusing. Plus, Elecia got to play with a Surface Pro. Check out  Jennelle's blog Jennelle and Elecia met at She's Geeky in Mountain View, CA.

David Anders ( Google+ ) joined Elecia to chat about open source hardware, what it means, how to do it, and why.  Dave will be speaking at the embedded Linux conference in San Jose, CA on April 30th: 9:00am: Panel: IoT and the Role of Embedded Linux and Android 4:20pm: Hardware Debugging Tools 5:20pm: Debugging - Panel Discussio n  Open Source Hardware Association  describes the gradient of open s...

Josh Chan and Tarun Pondicherry, founders of Light Up  ( @Lightup  or on Facebook ), returned to the show. In episode 7 , they were midway through their kickstarter , planning to make a product to teach electronics to elementary and middle school students. They've start shipping, even distributing , their MiniKits (other kits will ship soon!).  Elecia asks them if building their business and shipp...

Tony Rios from MEMSIC spoke with Elecia about inertial systems and tuning algorithms used in sensor fusion (i.e. Kalman ). The IMU380 will appear soon, creating a whole line of relatively inexpensive quality inertial measurement and inertial navigation systems.  Tony has a  few embedded systems and algorithms positions open, for example, embedded software engineer . Email hr@memsic.com (note you h...

Christopher White ( @stoneymonster ) and Elecia talk about the failed startups (and projects) they've been through, focusing on identifying how to discern the end is nigh.  A nice collection of startups introspecting their failure. Wonderful, in-depth  Everpix post-mortem . If you liked this episode, try 24: I AM A TOTAL FRAUD .

Micah Elizabeth Scott ( @scanlime ) came to talk about Fadecandy , a really neat way to control smart LEDs ( NeoPixel , AdaFruit's term for the WS2812). The conversation ranged from beautiful LED control algorithms and open source embedded projects to triangle tessellations , art, and identity.  AdaFruit has a great intro to Fadecandy . Fadecandy is open source hardware and software, see the repos...

  Evil Mad Scientist's Lenore Edman ( @EMSL ) talks about what evil mad scientists do on their path to world domination. Surprisingly, it consists largely of art, education, and soldering. Some EMSL items we talked about: LED Menorah kit ( solderless breadboard and soldering version ). ATtiny2313 Target Boards Bristlebot : a very cute, easy to build mini robot  We also mentioned Maker Faire , a wo...

Jen Costillo ( @r0b0ts0nf1r3 ) joined Elecia to talk about Jen's start-up: Bia Sport  ( @BiaSport ). They discuss the difficulties of being in an underfunded start-up as well as the joys of shipping a new product and their upcoming conference talks. Jen discussed the company's focus on safety and privacy at the  DesignCon sponsored Geek Girl Dinner . She will be speaking at : Wearables Device Conf...

Producer Chris White ( @stoneymonster ) and Elecia discuss some insurmountable problems and some strategies for approaching them.  Google it (or look on Stack Exchange ). Explain the problem to someone else… even if they aren't there (use a stuffed animal or write a really detailed email, anticipating potential questions). Draw a picture (system/subsystem architecture or code block diagram or a do...

Dr. Karen Shell and Elecia talk about modelling vs. building models, ocean albedo vs. ice, climate vs. weather, and science vs. policy. They gloat about being on vacation only intermittently. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration  (NOAA) NASA's climate change home   Help run climate models on your home computer at climateprediction.net Karen's class will be looking at data from NOAA's Cl...

Elecia gushes about her favorite logic (and protocol) analyzer to  Saleae co-founder Mark Garrison. They also discuss start-ups, manufacturing, and covering yourself with rum and pretending to be a pirate when harbor patrol arrives.  Saleae Logic 8 on Amazon (or from Saleae ) Saleae Logic 16 on Amazon (or from Saleae ) Space X reusable rocket video Saleae's  blog talks about Mark and Joe's boat, s...

Want to learn how to get from idea to schematic, through layout, all the way to physical boards? Elecia spoke with Chris Gammell about his Contextual Electronics  course to teach the missing steps between what an EE learns in college and what an design engineer's job entails. Chris is co-host of the excellent electronics podcast The Amp Hour  and author of Chris Gammell's Analog Life . On twitter,...

Elecia describes to Christopher ( @stoneymonster ) how to design and create a firmware update mechanism. Hilarity ensues.  4k PC emulator Making Embedded Systems, the book, on O'Reilly (coupon in last 2 minutes of the show) or on Amazon .    

Alison Chaiken ( Google+ ) and Elecia discuss what you need to know to get into development for the automotive market.  Check out Alison's she-devel site for a big list of links and resources or go to a  Silicon Valley Automotive Open Source Group  meetup to say hello. A small subset: Open source engine management system on DIYEFI Car hacking site MP3 Car Vehicle standards  ISO-26262 CORRECTION: I...

Patrick Kane ( @PSoC_Nation ) is the director of the Cypress University Alliance , working with colleges to provide development kits and information to college (and high school) students. Happily, Patrick brought Elecia a new dev kit:  CY8CKIT-042 .

Producer Christopher ( @stoneymonster ) joins Elecia to look through their mailbag and talk about gift ideas. Podcasts we like: The Amp Hour 99% Invisible   Radiolab 5x5 network's Back to Work Accidental tech Splendid Table (food) Some listener suggestions on where to get small run boards made: http://www.cadsoftusa.com http://www.seeedstudio.com/service/index.php?r=site/pcbService http://www.pcbc...

James Grenning ( @jwgrenning ) joined Elecia to talk about how to be a good programmer using Test Driven Development (TDD). James' excellent book on how to use TDD:  Test Driven Development for Embedded Systems   Take a class from  Renaissance Software Manual test is not sustainable blog post, from James' blog Legacy code challenge from Github SOLID design principles Iterative and Incremental Deve...

Kathleen Vaeth of MicroGen Systems (@MicroGenSystems) spoke with Elecia (@LogicalElegance) about energy harvesting using MEMS devices. Some introductory videos: BOLT™ Micro Power Generator An energy harvester enables TI eZ430 with Linear LTC3588 While we missed it on the show, Kathleen also wanted to mention MicroGen Systems' finite element modeling partners: SoftMEMS and Open Engineering .

Author Laura Lemay ( @lemay ) spoke with Elecia ( @logicalelegance ) about writing books, APIs, code, and science fiction.  Laura wrote many of the Teach Yourself ... in 21 Days books:  her bibliography on Amazon . Laura's blog  includes short stories.  November is National Novel Writing Month, see the NaNoWriMo site Edward Tufte wrote the amazing Envisioning Information  (among many other beautif...

From the MEMS Industry Group Executive Congress : Ivo Stivoric, co-founder of the Body Media which was purchased by Jawbone CEO Sam Guilaume and Dave Rothenberg of Movea Stephen Walsh, ISKN – iSketchnote , one of the pitches in the MEMS Elevator Pitch Session From the 2013 IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference : David Peter works with New Life International . His paper was "A Simple Algor...